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PASSAGES CHOSEN FROM THE WRITINGS OF 


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Bs. O.M., F.R.S., F.B.A. 


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_ REVISED AND EDITED BY THE AUTHOR 


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Pik hACE 


In this volume are collected some of the more 
general conclusions to which my studies of early 
society and religion led me in past years, and for the 
convenience of readers who lack the leisure or the 
taste to pursue the subject in detail they have been 
disengaged from the heavy masses of facts on which 
they are founded. There is no doubt a certain risk 
in thus divorcing conclusions from premises, in pre- 
senting generalizations without the particulars from 
which they have been deduced, and I would not have 
adopted a procedure so contrary to my usual practice 
if it were not that the evidence for my deductions 
had been fully set forth in the works from which these 
passages have been detached, and to which I would 
_ refer the curious or sceptical reader for more exact 
information on all points. The volume has been 
compiled under my direction by my friend :Pierre 
_Sayn, who is in large measure responsible both for the 
choice of the passages and for the order in which they 
are arranged. I am grateful to him for the taste and 
_ judgement, as well as for the diligence and accuracy, 
with which he has performed his task, and I cannot but 
admire the skill with which he has pieced the fragments 
together into a mosaic of a regular pattern, I have 


added some passages, shifted a few, and prefixed titles 
vii 


vill PREFACE 


to all. Further, I have changed a few words here 
and there to fit the pieces into their new setting or to 
improve my original expression, and occasionally | 
have appended a footnote for the benefit of readers 
who may be unfamiliar with the subject. For their 
sake also I have made a fairly full index, and I have 
explained a few hard words in the notes; but here as 
elsewhere I have been very sparing in the use of such 
terms, believing that the simple ways and simple 
thoughts of primitive folk, with whom I am chiefly 
concerned, can best be described in simple language. 
While the volume has, I trust, a certain unity of 
design, it is hardly necessary to warn the reader that 
it does not pretend to exhibit even in outline a con- 
tinuous picture, still less a history, of man’s progress 
at any stage of his mental and social development. 
To paint such a picture, to write such a history, 
would call for a range of knowledge and a compass 
of mind to which I can lay no claim. All that I 
have attempted to do in the past is to study some 
phases of human evolution, and all that I have 
attempted in the present volume is to crystallize, as it 
were, the results of my studies into an optic glass which 
may afford the reader some momentary glimpses of 
the long march of humanity on the upward road from 
savagery to civilization. The march is still in pro- 
gress and no doubt will continue without a halt when 
we are gone. Its destination is unknown, hidden in 
the mists of the future. If the marching columns 
should carry in their baggage any of my works, per- 
haps this book may be found in some of the knap- 
sacks. At least I have sought to lighten the burden by 
throwing out ‘a heavy load of facts. Yet, if I mistake 
not, my facts will be found in the long run to be more 


PREFACE ix 


_ valuable and more prized hereafter than my theories. 
For theories are shifting and transitory, while facts 
are permanent and eternal, if anything can be truly 
so called in this world of perpetual change. Ac- 
cordingly I surmise that should my writings find a 
place on the shelves of our descendants, it will be 
rather for the sake of the quaint and barbarous 
customs and beliefs which they describe than for the 
theories by which I have tried to elucidate them. 
For we must always remember that books, like men, 
have their fate, and that the great bulk of them are 
destined to perish sooner or later. Among these 
short-lived volumes will doubtless be numbered many 
of those from which I have drawn precious materials 
for the composition of my own; and when we of this 
age are ranked by posterity among the ancients, it 
may be that some of my books will still be read as 
records of a state of savagery and barbarism which 
has long passed away, and of which the original 
documents have perished. Meantime the present 
volume may perhaps have a temporary utility as a 
clue to guide students through the mazes of my 


larger works. 
J. G. Frazer. 
LONDON, 
26th June 1927. 


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XXIII. 


CONTENTS 


PART I 
THE STUDY OF MAN 


. A New Province of Knowledge 
. The Evolution of Man 
. The Comparative Method 
. The Study of the Human Mind : 
. Diversity of Types the Effect and Condition of Evolution 
. A Science of Origins 
. The Savage as a Human Document 
. The Passing of the Savage ; 
. The Passing of the Savage: England’s ae 
. Sibylline Leaves . 
. Civilization evolved out of Savagery 
. A Scale of Mental Evolution 
. The Scientific Spirit 
. The Inductive Method ‘ 
. The Oscillations of the Social Pendulum 
. The Mirage of a Golden Age 
. The Clash of Cultures 
. The Human Comedy. 
. Action the Touchstone of Belief 
. The Rationality of the Savage . : 
i Existing Savages. not.absolutely. alan “ 


The Lowly not necessarily degraded | 


The Meaning of Folk-lore 
xi 


xii 


XXIV. 
XXV. 
XXVI. 
XXVII. 
XXVIII. 
XXIX. 
XXX. 
XXXI. 
XXXII. 
XXXII. 


XXXIV. 
XXXV. 
XXXVI. 
. .XXXVIL. 
XXXVIII. 
XXXIX. 
XL. 

XLI. 
XLII. 
XLII. 
XLIV. 
XLV, 
XLVI. 
XLVIL. 
XLVIII. 
XLIX. 


CONTENTS 


Folk-lore and Poetry . 
The Backwardnéss of Aboriginal Man in Australia 
The Tide of Progress setting from the Sea 


Material Progress the Measure of Intellectual Advance . 


Evolution and Diffusion of Culture 
Similarities of Custom, and their Origin 


“The Question of Single or Multiple Origins | 


The Danger of Excessive Simplification 
The Problems of Anthropology 
The Progress of Humanity . 


PART II 
MAN IN SOCIETY 


The Discovery of Totemism and Exogamy 
Different Possible Origins of Totemism and Exogamy 
The History of Totemism 

Totemism and Exogamy in History 

Totemism defined 

The Diffusion of Totemism .— 

The Industrial Theory of Totemism 

The Conceptional Theory of Totemism 

The Savage Theory of Conception . 

The Primitive Conception of Paternity 

Totemism in Fairy Tales 

Totemism and the Origin of Agriculture 

Woman’s Part in the Origin of Agriculture 
Totemism and Art 

Effect of Totemism in strengthening the Social Ties 


The Problem of Exogamy 


. The Origin of Exogamy in Australia 

. Exogamy and Group Marniage 

. The Narrowing Ring of Marriage . 

. The Origin of Prohibited Degrees . 

. The Relation of Totemism and Exogamy in Aystralia 
. The Alternative of Father-kin or Mother-kin 


PAGE 


oad 


LVI. 


LVII, 
LVIII. 
LIX. 
LX. 
LXI. 
LXII. 
LXIII. 


LXIV. 


LXV. 
LXVI. 
LXVII. 
LXVIII. 
LXIX. 


LXX. 
LXXI, 


LXXII. 
LXXIII. 
LXXIV. 
LXXV. 
LXXVI. 
LXXVII. 
LXXVIII. 
LXXIX. 
LXXX. 
LXXXI. 


LXXXII. 
LXXXIII. 
LXXXIV. 
LXXXV. 


CONTENTS 


The Dream of Gynaecocracy 

The Problem of Exogamy, a General Solution 
Analogy of Exogamy and Scientific Breeding 
The Avoidance of Near Relations 


The Origin of Aversion to Incest unknown 


A Conjecture as to the Origin of the Aversion to Incest . 


The Classificatory System of Relationship 


Origin of the Classificatory System in Group Marriage . 


The Classificatory System and the Dual Organization 
Group Marriage and Group Relationship . 

The Classificatory System a Landmark in History 
The Levirate and the Sororate 

The Levirate and Group Marriage . 


The Levirate and the Sororate as Relics of Group 


Marriage 


The Barter of Sisters as a Source of Group Marriage 


Exogamy and the Classificatory System not necessarily 


Universal Stages in the Progress of Humanity 
The Marriage of Cross-Cousins 
The Origin of Cross-Cousin Marriage 
Man not an Automaton 
Laws never wholly New 
The Flux of Morality 
Our Debt to the Savage 
The Pillars of Society 
Indirect Benefits of Superstition 
Superstition at the Bar 
Summing up for the Defence : Sentence of Death 


PART III 


MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


The Origin of Man’s Conception of God 
Rudimentary Notion of God among many Savages 
Natural Theology 

The Age of Magic 


xiii 
PAGE 
127 
130 
135 
139 
145 
148 
153 
156 
159 
160 
163 
163 
164 


167 
168 


169 
172 
173 
180 
181 
183 
185 
187 
187 
189 
19! 


197 
200 
201 
217 


XIV 


LXXXVI. 


LXXXVII. 
LXXXVIII. 
LXXXIX. 
XC. 

XCI. 

XCII. 
XCIII. 
XCIV. 
XCV. 


XCVI. 


XCVII. 

XCVIII. 
XCIX. 

. Effect of the Variability of Climate on the Belief in mee? 

. The Religion and Magic of the Seasons . 

. The Changes of the Seasons in Greek Mythology 

. The Influence of Nature on Religion 

. The Creation of the World 

. The Magic Spring 


CXIX. 
CXX. 


CONTENTS 


The Principles of Magic 

Negative Magic 

Magical Telepathy . 

The Prohibition of Images among the Hebrews . 
Benefits accruing from the Rise of Public Magicians 
The Magician’s Progress 

The Real Leaders of Mankind 

Human Gods 


Compulsory Kingships 


The Divinity of Kings : 
The Analogy of Magic to Science . 
The Fallacy of Magic 

Magic older than Religion 

The Passage from Magic to Religion 


. Random Shots of Magic 
. Magical Rites of Pastoral People . : 
. The Religious or Magical Origin of the Drama . 
. Sacred Dramas as Magical Rites . | 
. Ancient Saturnalias . 
. Castles of Sand 
. The Stone of Sisyphus : 
. The Rise of the Gods, Decline of Magic ; 
. The Hostility of Religion to Magic 
. Belief in the Omnipresence of Demons 

CXVI. 
CXVII. 
CXVIII. 


Guarded Speech 

Abbot Richalm on Devils . 
The Bells of the High Priest 
The Sound of Church Bells 

Religion and Music . 


CXXI. 
CXXIl. 
XXIII 
_ CXXIV. 
CXXV. 
 CXXVI. 
CXXVII. 
CXXVIII. 
CXXIX. 
CXXX. 
CXXXI. 


CXXXI!I. 
CXXXIII. 


CXXXIV. 
CXXXV. 


CXXXVI. 


CXXXVII. 
. CXXXVIII. 
~CXXXIX. 

CXL. 


CXLI. 


CXLII. 
CXLIII. 
CXLIV. 
CXLV. 
CXLVI . 
CXLVII. 
CXLVIII. 
CXLIX. 
CL. 

CLI. 


CONTENTS 
The Nature of Religion ; 
The Two Forms of Natural Religion 
Animism 


The Stratification of Religion 


The Transformation of Totems into Gods 


The Complex Fabric of Religion . 


The Transition from Animism to Monotheism 


Isis and the Madonna 

The Virtue of Taboo 

The Confession of Sins | 

The Permanence of Superstition 
The Primitive Aryan 

The Menace of Superstition 
European Belief in Witchcraft 


Saints as Rainmakers in Sicily 


The Transience of the Higher Religions . 


The Religion of the Folk 
Oriental Religions in the West 
The Pieta of Michael Angelo 


_The Historical Study of Religion. es 


The Movement of Thought 


PART IV 


MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


The Belief in Immortality . 

The Problem of Death 

Primitive Theories of Death 

The Fear of Death 

The Contempt of Death 

The Fallof Man . 

Death deemed Unnecessary . 

The Primitive Conception of the Soul 
The Soul conceived as a Shadow . 
The Belief in an External Soul 


XV 
PAGE 


297 
300 
302 
303 
395 
306 
308 
310 
313 
314 
316 
318 
319 
320 
321 
322 
323 
325 
336 


= 336.5 


339 


347 
347 
350 
354 
354 
355 
357 
358 
359 
360 


Xvi 


CLI. 
CLIII. 
CLIV. 

CLV. 


CLVI. 


CLVII. 
CLVIII. 
CLIX. 
CLX. 
CLXI. 
CLXII. 
CLXIII. 


CLXIV. 


CLXV. 
CLXVI. 


CLXVII. 
CLXVIII. 
CLXIX. 
CLXX. 
CLXXI. 
CLXXII. 
CLXXIII. 
CLXXIV. 


CLXXV. 
CLXXVI. 
CLXXVII. 


CONTENTS 


The Ritual of Death and Resurrection 2 
The Reason for depositing the Soul outside the Body 
Savage Beliefs as to the Souls of Animals . 
Dreams as a Source of Belief in Immortality 

Life as an Indestructible Energy 

Empedocles, Herbert Spencer, and Darwin 

The World of Ghosts . _ 

The Fear of Ghosts 

Salutary Effect of the Fear of Ghosts 

The Worship of the Dead 

The Deification of the Dead . 

Euhemerism SERENA A 

Great Men as Founders of Religions 

Demeter and Immortality 

Death and the Roses . 

The Mortality of the Gods 

The Slaying of the Man-God 

The Eating of a God . 

The Dying God as Redeemer 

The Theory of Deicide 

The Sacrifice of a God for the Gatvancd of the World 
The Question of Immortality 

The Assumption of an External World 

The Incapacity of the Mind to grasp the Infinite 
Materialism and Spiritualism 

The Unending Search 


“INDEX . 


4 


PAGE 


362 
364 
365 
367 
369 
371 
379 
380 
383 
386 
392 
394 
395 
396 
398 
402 
403 
404 
405 
406 
407 
409 
413 
416 
418 
419 


423 


PART I 
THE STUDY OF MAN 


7 


PUL ai aires 


a ee : + : oi i Cae ; +) Pelee 
Bee: : th pra fy t ere 4 Fy ae? Tae 


I 
A NEW PROVINCE OF KNOWLEDGE} 


THE position of the anthropologist of to-day resembles 
in some sort the position of classical scholars at the 
revival of learning. To these men the rediscovery 
of ancient literature came like a revelation, disclosing 
to their wondering eyes a splendid vision of the antique 
world, such as the cloistered student of the Middle 
Ages never dreamed of under the gloomy shadow of 
the minster and within the sound of its solemn bells. 
To us moderns a still wider vista is vouchsafed, a 
greater panorama is unrolled by the study which aims 
at bringing home to us the faith and the practice, the 
hopes and the ideals, not of two highly gifted races 
only, but of all mankind, and thus at enabling us to. 
follow the long march, the slow and toilsome ascent, 


of humanity from savagery to civilization. And as 

the scholar of the Renaissance found not merely fresh 
food for thought but a new field of labour in the dusty 
and faded manuscripts of Greece and Rome, so in the 
mass of materials that is steadily pouring in from 
many sides—from buried cities of remotest antiquity 
as well as from the rudest savages of the desert and 
the jungle—we of to-day must recognize a new pro- 
vince of knowledge which will task the energies of 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol.i., Preface, pp. xxv-xxvi. 
3 


4 THE STUDY OF MAN 


generations of students to master. The study is still 
in its rudiments,-and what we do now will have to be 
done over again and done better, with fuller know- 
ledge and deeper insight, by those who come after us. 
We of this age are only pioneers hewing lanes and 
clearings in the forest where others will hereafter sow 
and reap. 

But the comparative study of the beliefs and in- 
stitutions of mankind is fitted to be much more than 
a means of satisfying an enlightened curiosity and of 
furnishing materials for the researches of the learned. 
Well handled, it may become a powerful instrument 
to expedite progress if it lays bare certain weak spots 
in the foundations on which modern society is built— 
if it shows that much which we are wont to regard as 
solid rests on the sands of superstition rather than on 
“the rock of nature. It is indeed a melancholy and in 
some respects thankless task to strike at the founda- 
tions of beliefs in which, as in a strong tower, the hopes 
and aspirations of humanity through long ages have 
sought a refuge from the storm and stress of life. Yet 
sooner or later it is inevitable that the battery of the 
comparative method should breach these venerable 
walls, mantled over with the ivy and mosses and wild 
flowers of a thousand tender and sacred associations. 
At present we are only dragging the guns into posi- 
tion: they have hardly yet begun to speak. The task 
of building up into fairer and more enduring forms 
the old structures so rudely shattered is reserved for 
other hands, perhaps for other and happier ages. We 
cannot foresee, we can hardly even guess, the new 
forms into which thought and society will run in the 
future. Yet this uncertainty ought not to induce us, 
from any consideration of expediency or regard for 


THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 5 


antiquity, to spare the ancient moulds, however beauti- 
ful, when these are proved to be out-worn. Whatever 
comes of it, wherever it leads us, we must follow truth 
alone. It is our only guiding star: hoc signo vinces. 


II 
THE EVOLUTION OF MAN}! 


The study of savage society forms part of the 
general science of man or anthropology. That 
science is one of the latest born in the sisterhood of 
the sciences, being hardly older than about the middle 
of the nineteenth century; in fact, the science is 
contemporary with not a few of its exponents who 
have not yet reached the extreme limit of old age. 
Not very many years have elapsed since two of its 
founders in England, Lord Avebury and Sir Edward 
Tylor, passed away. But, though young in years, 
the science has grown so rapidly that already it is 
hardly possible for any one man to embrace the whole 
of it. The principle of the division of labour, which 
is essential to economic progress, is no less essential 
to scientific progress. The time has gone by when 
the comprehensive intellect of an Aristotle or a Bacon 
could take all knowledge for its province. More and 
more each inquirer has to limit his investigations to a 
small patch of the field, to concentrate the glow-worm 
lamp of his intelligence ona tiny circle, almost a speck, 
in the vast expanse which we dimly perceive stretching 
out to infinity on every side of us. Only by multi- 
plying these glow-worm lamps, glimmering side by 


+ “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” Science Progress, 
No. 64, April 1922, pp. 580-583. 


6 THE STUDY OF MAN 


side, can we hope, step by step, to diffuse the light 
of knowledge through the boundless region of the 
unknown. 

In our particular science the first broad and sharp 
division is between the study of man’s body and the 
study of his mind. The one is known as physical 
anthropology; the other is now, at least in this 
country, commonly called social anthropology, but 
I should prefer to call it by the more general name 
of mental anthropology. For though man is no 
doubt pre-eminently a social being and probably 
owes a large part of his superiority as an animal to 
the strength of his gregarious instincts, these instincts 
are only part of his mental endowment, and even when 
we have abstracted them from our consideration, 
there still remains in the human mind much that 
deserves to be carefully studied and that naturally 
falls under the science of man. It is with mental, 
as distinguished from physical, anthropology that 
I shall be exclusively occupied in these pages. 

But even when, in anthropology, we have limited 
our inquiries to the mind of man, the subject is still 
so vast that, if progress is to be made, some further 
subdivision of it becomes necessary. For the mind 
of man has for ages been investigated by a whole 
series of special studies, which, under the various 
names of psychology, logic, metaphysics, and ethics, 
sometimes summed up under the general title of 
philosophy, have made great and noble contributions 
to a science of man. What place, then, is there for 
the new study of mental anthropology beside these 
ancient studies ?_ Is there room for her in the venerable 
college? Can she discharge a function which was 
not previously performed by her older sisters? We 


THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 7 


think that she can, and to determine what that function 
is, we need only perhaps consider the date at which 
the modern science of anthropology as a whole was 
first taken up seriously and systematically. The 
birth of anthropology followed almost immediately 
the promulgation of the evolution theory by Darwin 
and Wallace in 1859. I think I am right in saying 
that the foundation of anthropological societies at 
home and abroad has everywhere been subsequent 
to that date and has followed it often at very short 
intervals. Be that as it may, the theory of the gradual 
evolution of man out of a long series of inferior forms 
of animal life is now generally accepted, though 
diversity of opinion still prevails as to the precise 
mode in which the evolution has been brought about. 
It is this conception of evolution which supplies a 
basis for the modern science of anthropology. 

On the physical side human anatomy had been 
studied for centuries and was, I take it, firmly estab- 
lished on its main lines long before the appearance 
of Darwin; the new idea imported into the science 
was that the human body, like the bodies of all animals, 
is not a finished product, a fixed type, struck out by 
nature or created by God at a blow, but that it is 
rather a merely temporary effect, the result of a long 
process of what resembles growth rather than con- 
struction or creation, a growth which we have no 
reason to suppose has been arrested, but is probably 
still going on and may cause our descendants to 
differ as far from us as we now differ from our remotest 
ancestors in the scale of animate being. It is only 
the slowness of the process that hides the movement 
from our eyes and suggests the conclusion, so flattering 
to human vanity, that nature has reached her con- 


8 THE STUDY OF MAN 


summation in us and can no farther go. An immediate. 
result of the promulgation of the evolution theory 
was thus to give an immense impulse to comparative 
anatomy; for it was now recognized that man’s 
bodily frame is not an isolated structure, but that it 
is closely related to that of many of the other animals, 
and that the one structure cannot be fully understood 
without the other. Not the least important branch 
of what we may call the new anatomy was the science 
of embryology, which by a comparison of the human 
and animal embryos was able to demonstrate their 
close resemblance for a considerable period of their 
development, and thus to supply a powerful argument 
in favour of the conclusion, that man and what he 
calls the lower animals have had a common origin, 
and that for an incalculable time they probably 
pursued nearly parallel lines of evolution. In fact, 
embryology shows that the very process of evolution, 
which we postulate for the past history of our race, 
is summarily reproduced in the life-history of every 
man and woman who is born into the world. 

Turning now from the physical to the mental side 
of man’s nature, we may say that the evolution 
theory has in like manner opened up a new province 
of inquiry which has been left unoccupied by the older 
philosophy. Whenever in former days a philosopher 
set himself to inquire into the principles of the human 
mind, it was his own particular mind, or at most the 
minds of his civilized contemporaries, that he pro- 
ceeded to investigate. When Descartes turned his 
eyes inwards and reflected on the operations of his 
own mind, he believed himself to be probing to the 
very deepest foundations accessible to human intelli- 
gence. It never occurred to him, I imagine, to apply 


THE EVOLUTION OF MAN 9 


for information to the mind of a Zulu or a Hottentot, 
still less of a baboon or a chimpanzee. Yet the 
doctrine of evolution has rendered it highly probable 
that the mind of the philosopher is indissolubly linked 
to the minds of these barbarous peoples and strange 
animals, and that, if we would fully understand it, 
we must not disdain to investigate the intelligence 
of these our humble relations. 

It is a corollary of the development theory that, 
simultaneously with the evolution of man’s body 
out of the bodies of lower animals, his mind has 
undergone a parallel evolution, gradually improving 
from perhaps bare sensation to the comparatively 
high level of intelligence to which the civilized races 
have at present attained. And as in the evolution 
_ of the bodily form we know that many species of lower 
orders have survived side by side with the higher 
to our own day, so:in the evolution of the mind we 
may infer that many of the existing races of mankind 
have lagged behind us, and that their various degrees 
of mental development represent various degrees of 
retardation in the evolutionary process, various stages 
in the upward march of humanity. I say the upward 
_march, because we have good reason to believe that 
most, if not all, of these laggard races are steadily, 
though very slowly, advancing ; or at least that they 
were so till they came, for their misfortune, into fatal 
contact with European civilization. The old theory. 
_of the progressive degeneracy of mankind in general 
from a primitive state of virtue and perfection is 
destitute of even a rag of evidence. Even the more 
_ Timited~and tenable view that certain races have 
partially degenerated, rests, I believe, on a very 
narrow induction. Speaking for myself, I may say 


10 THE STUDY OF MAN 


that in my reading of savage records I have met with 
few or no facts which point clearly and indubitably 
to racial degeneracy. Even among the Australian 
aborigines, the least progressive of mankind, I have 
not, so far as I remember, noted the least sign that 
they once occupied a higher level of culture than that 
at which they were discovered by. Europeans. On the 
contrary, many things in their customs and beliefs 
appear to me to plead very strongly in favour of 
the conclusion that aboriginal Australian society, so 
far as we can trace it backward, has made definite 
progress on the upward path from lower to o higher 
forms of social life. That progress appears to have 
been assisted, if not initiated, in certain parts of 
Australia by favourable physical conditions, chiefly 
by a higher rainfall in the mountainous regions near 
the coast, with its natural consequence of a greater 
abundance of food, in contrast to the drought and 
sterility of the desert interior. 


III 
THE COMPARATIVE METHOD? 


The province, then, of mental or social anthro- 
pology may be defined as the study of the mental and 
social conditions of the various races of mankind, 
especially of the more primitive 1 races ; compared to to ‘the 
more advanced, with a view to trace the general 
“evolution of human thought, particularly in its earlier 
stages. This comparative study of the mind of man 


is thus analogous to the comparative study of his body 


1 “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” Sczence Progress, 
No. 64, April 1922, pp. 584-586. 


THE COMPARATIVE METHOD it 


which is undertaken by anatomy and physiology. But 
whereas comparative anatomy and physiology extend 
the range of their comparisons far beyond the human 
species so as to include the whole gamut of animate 
being, mental anthropology is content for the present 
to limit its comparisons to the members of our own 
kind. Yet the limitation is doubtless only temporary ; 
it is to be expected that in time a growing knowledge 
of the mental processes of the lower animals will permit 
of a comparison of them with the corresponding pro- 
cesses in the mind of man, a comparison which could 
hardly fail to throw light on many problems as yet 
unsolved. 
But while in the interest of the science of man 
a greatly extended application of the comparative 
method is desirable and in the future inevitable, some 
well-meaning but injudicious friends of anthropology 
would limit the application of the method still more 
narrowly than I have assumed to be temporarily 
necessary or advisable. They would apparently re- 
fuse to allow us to compare the thoughts and institu- 
tions, the arts and crafts, of distant races with each 
other, and would only allow us to compare those of 
neighbouring races. A little reflection may convince 
us that any such restriction, even if it were practicable, 
would be unwise; nay, that, were it enforced, it would 
be disastrous. We compare things on the ground of 
their similarity, and similarity is not affected by 
distance. Radium is alike on the earth and in the 
sun; it would be absurd to refuse to compare them 
_ on the ground that they are separated by many millions 
of miles. What would be thought of any other science 
which imposed on itself the restriction which some of 
our friends would inflict on anthropology ? Would 


{2 THE STUDY OF MAN 


geology prosper if it confined its investigation, say, of 
sedimentary rocks to those of England and refused 
to compare those of Asia and America? How would 
zoology fare if the zoologist were forbidden to compare 
the animals of his own country with the animals of 
distant countries? the dogs, say, of Wales with the 
dogs of Africa and Australia? The futility, nay, the 
inherent absurdity, of the proposed restriction is so 
manifest that simply to state the proposal explicitly 
should suffice to expose it. Disguised in the fallacious 
form of a prudent precept, the nostrum is commonly 
administered to the sufferer with a trite tag from Dr. 
Johnson about surveying mankind from China to 
Peru, as if the mere idea of instituting such a survey . 
were too preposterous for serious consideration. Yet 
the same men who level this taunt at anthropology 
would not dream of directing a similar gibe at the 
sciences of geology, botany, and zoology, im which 
the comparisons are world-wide. 


IV 
THE STUDY OF THE HUMAN MIND? 


Mais méme en laissant de cété le corps humain, la 
question de l’esprit humain reste d’une complexité 
énorme. Contemplons cet esprit, non pas seulement 
en lui-méme, mais en toutes ses manifestations ex- 
térieures, je veux dire en tout ce qu’il a créé d’arts, de 
sciences, d’institutions sociales, politiques, religieuses. 
Et souvenons-nous que pendant des siecles innom- 
brables ces arts, ces sciences, ces institutions ont varié 


1 The Gorgon’s Head and other Literary Pieces, “ Sur l’Etude des Origines 
humaines,”’ pp. 340-342. 


THE STUDY OF THE HUMAN MIND 13 


presque a l’infini selon les diversités des races, des 
temps, des lieux. Ainsi regardée 1’étude de |’esprit 
humain devient d’une complexité effrayante. Com- 
ment l’aborder? Comment l’esprit humain peut-il 
se comprendre ? Comment est-il en état d’expliquer 
toutes ses créations, si multiples, si variées, si diverses ? 

On explique une chose en |’analysant, c’est-a-dire, 
en la décomposant en ses éléments simples, et en 
évaluant les forces qui ont rapproché et réuni ces 
éléments, les emboitant les uns dans les autres de 
facon a en faire un ensemble cohérent et harmonieux. 
Donc, pour l'étude de |’esprit humain et de ses ceuvres, 
la question se pose: comment trouver les éléments et 
évaluer les forces dont cet ensemble si complexe est 
formé ? Comment découvrir la pensée humaine dans 
sa plus grande simplicité ? 

La réponse a cette question est fournie par la 
théorie de l’évolution organique. D’aprés cette théorie, 
chaque organisme, soit animal, soit végétal, a été 
produit par une évolution séculaire qui remonte, sans 
interruption, aux premiers débuts de la vie sur notre 
planéte, et qui consiste dans une longue série de trans- 
formations progressives, de telle sorte qu’A chaque 
étape l’étre vivant devient un peu moins simple et un 
peu plus complexe. D’owt il suit que pour comprendre 
la nature de n’importe quel organisme il faut chercher 
son origine dans le passé le plus reculé et suivre 
l’histoire de son évolution depuis ce premier moment 
jusqu’a nos jours. A cette régle l’homme ne fait pas 
exception. Pour le connaitre parfaitement il faudrait 
étudier l’histoire de son espéce dés le commencement : 
il faudrait tracer son évolution a la fois corporelle et 
mentale depuis ses origines les plus humbles jusqu’aux 
hauteurs les plus fastueuses qu'il se pique d’avoir 


MN, ih ae 
: Rate 


14 THE STUDY OF MAN 


atteintes. En un mot, pour savoir ce qu’est l'homme, 
il faut connaitre son origine. 

Mais on m’objectera qu’une connaissance parfaite 
de l’histoire de notre espéce dépasse les moyens dont 
nous disposons, et que si, sans une telle connaissance, 
la nature humaine reste incompréhensible, il faudra 
renoncer 4 l’espoir de jamais la comprendre. Heélas! 
l’objection n’est que trop juste, mais elle porte non 
seulement sur |’étude de homme, mais sur |’étude 
de n’importe quel étre, de n’importe quelle chose. 
Créatures imparfaites que nous sommes, la connais- 
sance parfaite n’est pas a notre portée: il faut nous 
contenter de quelque chose qui s’accorde mieux avec 
la mesure de nos faibles facultés: il faut nous borner 
aux limites étroites que nous impose la nature: il faut 
nous guider par des lumiéres blafardes et incertaines 
dans les ténébres de cet univers illimité ot. nous sommes 
égarés. Consolons-nous de notre ignorance par la 


pensée que nos descendants arriveront 4 résoudre 


beaucoup de problémes qui pour nous restent des 
énigmes. Car il faut toujours se souvenir que l’évolu- 
tion organique, comme la grande évolution cosmique, 
ne s’arréte pas 4 nous autres, homuncules de cette 
génération: elle poursuivra son cours grandiose 
pendant des siécles sans fin, créant des étres toujours 
plus parfaits, doués de facultés plus capables que les 
ndétres de saisir et de comprendre la vérité. 


- 
a 
7" 


DIVERSITY OF TYPES 15 


V 


DIVERSITY OF TYPES THE EFFECT AND 
CONDITION OF EVOLUTION ! 


Mais gardons-nous d’imaginer que le tableau ainsi 
retracé du développement de la culture humaine soit 
exact et complet. Il s’en faut de beaucoup. A part 
de nombreuses lacunes qu’on peut remarquer dans 
le tableau, ot les étapes intermédiaires font défaut, 
il serait téméraire au plus haut degré de supposer 
que n’importe quel état d’une tribu sauvage vivante 
correspond, trait pour trait, 4 une étape autrefois par- 
courue par les ancétres des races civilisées. Supposer 
une telle chose ce serait se fairé une idée trés fausse 
du procédé de |’évolution: ce serait imaginer que 
l’évolution suit partout le méme cours et qu’elle ne 
differe qu’en degrés de rapidité dans les différentes 
races humaines. D/’une telle supposition il suivrait 
que, laissées 4 elles-mémes, toutes les races humaines 
arriveraient au bout du compte exactement aux 
mémes étages de culture ; que les négres, par exemple, 
deviendraient des blancs; qu’ils se donneraient des 
lois aussi sages que celles de Justinien ou du code 
Napoléon; quils facgonneraient des statues aussi 
belles que celles de Phidias ou de Michel-Ange ; 
quils écriraient des tragédies aussi Emouvantes que 
celles de Shakespeare, et des comédies aussi spirituelles 
que celles de Moliére ;. et qu’ils créeraient une musique 
aussi ravissante que celle de Mozart. Non, Messieurs, 
la Nature n’est pas dépourvue d’imagination au point 


1 The Gorgon’s Head and other Literary Pieces, ‘Sur Etude des Origines 
humaines,” pp. 345-347. 


16 THE STUDY OF MAN 


d’étre forcée de couler tous les hommes dans le méme 
moule ; au contraire, elle crée une richesse prodigieuse 
de types divers, si bien qu’on peut se demander si 
jamais elle a produit deux individus de la méme 
espece absolument pareils. C’est justement cette 
diversité illimitée de types qui forme la condition 
préalable de 1’évolution organique. Nous pouvons 
nous figurer cette force créatrice, si je peux l’appeler 
ainsi, comme un arbre dont les rameaux poussent de 
tous les cétés; eh bien, ces rameaux se ressemblent 
sans étre jamais tout a fait semblables les uns aux 
autres, et sans jamais se réunir dans un seul tronc 
pareil 4 celui dont tous sont sortis ; au contraire, plus 
ils se développent, plus ils s’éloignent les uns des 
autres. La méme chose arrive au grand arbre de la 
‘vie: plus il crée de nouvelles espéces, et plus ces 
espéces continuent 4 se propager, plus elles divergent. 
Cependant cette loi de divergence toujours croissante 
ne s’applique pas si rigoureusement aux races 
humaines qu’aux diverses espéces d’animaux, parce 


que toutes les races humaines,. ne formant qu’une | 


espéce, peuvent se méler et produire ainsi un type 
intermédiaire; mais dans ce mélange, si je ne me 
trompe, les divers éléments persistent et peuvent 
reparaitre dans des rejetons assez éloignés. 


VI 


A SCIENCE OF ORIGINS! 


To sum up : the central problem of mental 
anthropology is to trace that evolution of the human 


mind which has accompanied _ the evolution of the 


eine 


athe: The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” Science Progress, 


No. 64, April 1922, p. 586. 


a 


THE SAVAGE AS A HUMAN DOCUMENT 17 


human body from the earliest times. _ But as the later 
“stages of that evolution h have long been studied by 
older sciences, it is only fair that the new science 
should confine itself for the most part to those earlier 
stages of which the older sciences had hardly taken 
account. That is why anthropology is commonly, 
and on the whole rightly, regarded as a science of _ 
origins. It is because the soledal of human origins 
was till lately a sort of no-man’s ground, untrodden by 
the foot of science but trampled by the hoofs of ignor- 
ance and superstition, that anthropology has come 
forward to reclaim this desert from the wild asses 
which roamed over it, and to turn it into a garden of 
knowledge. Her efforts have not been wholly in vain. 
Already the desert has begun to bear fruit and to 
blossom as the rose. 


VII 
THE SAVAGE AS A HUMAN DOCUMENT! 


The savage is a human document, a record of man’s 
efforts to raise “himself above the level of the beast. It 
is only of late years that the full value of the document 
has been appreciated ; indeed, many people are prob- 
ably still of Dr. Johnson’s opinion, who, pointing to 
the three large volumes of Voyages to the South Seas 
which had just come out, said: ‘“ Who will read them 
through ? A man had better work his way before the 
mast than read them through; they will be eaten by 
rats and mice before they are read through. There 
can be little entertainment in such books ; one set of 
savages is like another.”’ But the world has learned 
~a good deal since Dr. Johnson’s day ; and the records 


1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 172-174. 
; C 


18 “ THE STUDY OF MAN 


of savage life, which the sage of Bolt Court consigned 
without scruple to the rats and mice, have now their 
place among the most precious archives of humanity. 
Their fate has been like that of the Sibylline Books. 
They were neglected and despised when they might 
have been obtained complete; and now wise men 
would give more than a king’s ransom for their miser- 
ably mutilated and imperfect remains. It is true that 
before our time civilized men often viewed savages 
with interest and described them intelligently, and 
some of their descriptions are still of great scientific 
value. For example, the discovery of America 
naturally excited in the minds of the European peoples 
an eager curiosity as to the inhabitants of the new 
world, which had burst upon their gaze, as if at the 
waving of a wizard’s wand the curtain of the western 
sky had suddenly rolled up and disclosed scenes of 
glamour and enchantment. Accordingly some of the 
Spaniards who explored and conquered these realms 
of wonder have bequeathed to us accounts of the 
manners and customs of the Indians, which for 
accuracy and fullness of detail probably surpass any 
former records of an alien race. Such, for instance, is 
the great work of the Franciscan friar Sahagun on the 
natives of Mexico, and such the work of Garcilasso 
de la Vega, himself half an Inca, on the Incas of Peru. | 
Again, the exploration of the Pacific in the eighteenth 
century, with its revelation of fairy-like islands scattered 
in profusion over a sea of eternal summer, drew the 
eyes and stirred the imagination of Europe; and to 
the curiosity thus raised in many minds, though not 
in Dr. Johnson’s, we owe some precious descriptions 
of the islanders, who, in those days of sailing ships, 
appeared to dwell so remote from us that the poet 


THE PASSING OF THE SAVAGE 19 


Cowper fancied their seas might never again be 
ploughed by English keels. 


VIII 
THE PASSING OF THE SAVAGE! 


Our contemporaries of this and the rising generation 
appear to be hardly aware that we are witnessing the 
last act of a long drama, a tragedy and a comedy in 
“one, which is being silently played, with no fanfare of 
trumpets or roll of drums, before our eyes on the stage 
of history. Whatever becomes of the savages, the 
curtain must soon n descend on savagery for ever. oF 
late the pace of civilization has so quickened, i 
expansion has become so beyond example rapid, that 
many savage races, who only a hundred years ago still 
led their old life unknown and undisturbed in the 
depth of virgin forests or in remote islands of the sea, 
are now being rudely hustled out of existence or trans- 
formed into a pathetic burlesque of their conquerors. 
With their disappearance or transformation an ele- 
ment of quaintness, of picturesqueness, of variety will 
be gone from the world. Society will probably be 
happier on the whole, but it will be soberer in tone, 
greyer and more uniform in colouring. And as 
savagery recedes farther and farther into the past, it 
will become more and more an object of curiosity and 
wonder to generations parted from it by an impassable 
and ever-widening gulf of time. Its darker side will 
be forgotten, its brighter side will be remembered. 
Its cruelties, its hardships, its miseries will be slurred 
over; memory will dwell with delight on whatever 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i., Preface, pp. xiv-xv. 


20 THE STUDY OF MAN 


was good and beautiful, or may seem to have been 
good and beautiful, in the long-vanished life of the 
wilderness. Time, the magician, will cast his un- 
failing spell over these remote ages. An atmosphere 
of romance will gather round them, like the blue haze 
which softens into tender beauty the harsher features 
of a distant landscape. So the patriarchal age is in- 
vested for us with a perennial charm in the enchanting 
narratives of Genesis and the Odyssey, narratives 
which breathe the freshness of a summer morning 
and glister as with dewdrops in the first beams of the 
rising sun of history. 


IX 


THE PASSING OF THE SAVAGE; 
ENGLAND’S DUTY}! 


In the whole range of human knowledge at the 
present moment there is no more pressing need than 
that of recording this priceless evidence of man’s early 
history before it is too late. For soon, very soon, the 
opportunities which we still enjoy will be gone for ever. 
In another quarter of a century probably there will be 
little or nothing of the old savage life left to record. 
The savage, such as we may still see him, will then 
be as extinct as the dodo. The sands are fast run- 
ning out: the hour will soon strike: the record will be 
closed: the book will be sealed. And how shall we 
of this generation look when we stand at the bar of 
posterity arraigned on a charge of high treason to our 
race, we who neglected to study our perishing fellow- 
men, but who sent out costly expeditions to observe 
the stars and to explore the barren ice-bound regions of 

1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 175-176. 


THE PASSING OF THE SAVAGE 21 


the poles, as if the polar ice would melt and the stars 
would cease to shine when we are gone? Let us awake 
from our slumber, let us light our lamps, let us gird 
up our loins. The Universities exist for the advance- 
ment of knowledge. It is their duty to add this new 
province to the ancient departments of learning which 
they cultivate so diligently. Cambridge, to its honour, 
has led the way in equipping and despatching anthro- 
pological expeditions ; it is for Oxford, it is for Liver- 
pool, it is for every University in the land to join in 
the work. 

More than that, it is the public duty of every 
civilized State actively to co-operate. In this respect 
the United States of America, by instituting a bureau 
for the study of the aborigines within its dominions, 
has set an example which every enlightened nation 
that rules over lower races ought to imitate. On none 
does that duty, that responsibility, lie more clearly and 
more heavily than on our own, for to none in the 
whole course of human history has the sceptre been 
given over so many and so diverse races of men. We 
have made ourselves our brother’s keepers. Woe to 
us if we neglect our duty to our brother! It is not 
enough for us to rule in justice the peoples we have 
subjugated by the sword. We owe it to them, we 
owe it to ourselves, we owe it to posterity, who will 
require it at our hands, that we should describe them 
as they were before we found them, before they ever 
saw the English flag and heard, for good or evil, the 
English tongue. The voice of England speaks to 
her subject peoples in other accents than in the thunder 
of her guns. Peace has its triumphs as well as war: 
there are nobler trophies than captured flags and 
cannons. There are monuments, airy monuments, 


22 THE STUDY OF MAN 


monuments of words, which seem so fleeting and 
evanescent, that will yet last when your cannons have 
crumbled and your flags have mouldered into dust. 
When the Roman poet wished to present an image of 
perpetuity, he said that he would be remembered so 
long as the Roman Empire endured, so long as the 
white-robed procession of the Vestals and Pontiffs 
should ascend the Capitol to pray in the temple of 
Jupiter. That solemn procession has long ceased to 
climb the slope of the Capitol, the Roman Empire 
itself has long passed away, like the empire of Alex- 
ander, like the empire of Charlemagne, like the empire 
of Spain, yet still amid the wreck of kingdoms the 
poet’s monument stands firm, for still his verses are 
read and remembered. I appeal to the Universities, 
I appeal to the Government of this country to unite 
in building a monument, a beneficent monument, of 
the British Empire, a monument 


‘“* Quod non imber edax, non Aqutlo impotens 
Possit diruere, aut innumerabilis 
Annorum series, et fuga temporum” 


X 
SIBYLLINE LEAVES}! 


Everywhere the savages are dying out, and as they 
go they take with them page after page of the most 
ancient history of our race. The study of savage 
man may be compared to the Sibyl, who, as she threw 
away leaf after leaf, still demanded the same price for 
the ever-diminishing number that remained. Our 
chances of preserving for future generations a record 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. p. 95. 


CIVILIZATION EVOLVED OUT OF SAVAGERY x fal 


of these tribes—the beaten and dying runners in life’s 
race—are lessening year by year, enhancing rather 
than diminishing, as they drop away, the value of the 
few trustworthy records we have secured. For there 
is this difference between the Sibyl of Cumae and the 
Sibyl of anthropology: the revelation promised by 
the former was not lost for ever with the fluttering 
leaves—the future will in time reveal itself to the 
future; but who shall read in ages to come the 
vanished record of the past ? 


XI 
CIVILIZATION EVOLVED OUT OF SAVAGERY? 


The sphere of Social | Anthropology as I understand 
it, or at least as I propose to treat it, is limited to the 
crude beginnings, | the rudimentary development_of 
human society : it does not include the maturer phases 
‘of that complex growth, still less does it embrace the 
practical problems with which our modern statesmen 
and lawgivers are called upon to deal. The study 
might accordingly be described as the embryology 
of human thought and institutions, or, to be more 
precise, as that inquiry which seeks to ascertain, first, 
the beliefs and customs of savages, and, second, the 
relics of these beliefs and customs which have survived 
like fossils among peoples of higher culture. In this 
description of the sphere of Social Anthropology it_ 
iS implied that the ancestors of the civilized nations 
“Were once s savages, and that they have transmitted, 
Or may have transmitted, to their more cultured 
descendants ideas and institutions which, however 


1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 161-163. 


24 THE STUDY OF MAN 


incongruous with their later surroundings, were 
perfectly in keeping with the modes of thought and 
action of the ruder society in which they originated. 
In short, the definition assumes that civilization has 
always and everywhere been evolved out of savagery. 
“The mass of evidence on which this assumption rests 


is in my opinion so great as to render the induction 


incontrovertible. At least, if any one disputes it 
I do not think it worth while to argue with him. 
There are still, I believe, in civilized society people 
who hold that the earth is flat and that the sun goes 
round it; but no sensible man will waste time in the 
vain attempt to convince such persons of their error, 
even though these flatteners of the earth and circu- 
lators of the sun appeal with perfect justice to the 
evidence of their senses in support of their hallucina- 
tion, which is more than the opponents of man’s 
primitive savagery are able to do. 

Thus the study of savage life is a very important 
part of Social Anthropology. For by comparison 
with civilized man the savage represents an arrested 
or rather retarded stage of social development, and 
an examination of his customs and beliefs accordingly 
supplies the same sort of evidence of the evolution 
of the human mind that an examination of the embryo 
supplies of the evolution of the human body. To 
put it otherwise, a savage is to a civilized man as a 
child is to an adult; and just as the gradual growth 
of intelligence in a child corresponds to, and in a 
sense recapitulates, the gradual growth of intelligence 
in the species, so a study of savage society at various 
stages of evolution enables us to follow approximately, 
though of course not exactly, the road by which the 
ancestors of the higher races must have travelled in 


A SCALE OF MENTAL EVOLUTION 25 


their progress upward through barbarism to civiliza- 
tion. In short, savagery is the primitive condition of 


Re manera irere el 


mankind, and if we would understand what primitive | 
man was we must know what the savage now is. | 


pent ale Ta 2 Mahe 


‘ XII 
A SCALE OF MENTAL EVOLUTION}! 


Thus from an examination, first, of savagery and, 
second, of its survivals in civilization, the study of 
Social Anthropology atternpts to trace the early 
history of human thought and institutions. The 
history can never be complete, unless science should 
discover some mode of reading the faded record of 
the past of which we in this generation can hardly 
dream. We know indeed that every event, however 
insignificant, implies a change, however slight, in 
the material constitution of the universe, so that the 
whole history of the world is, in a sense, engraved 
upon its face, though our eyes are too dim to read the 
scroll. It may be that in the future some wondrous 
reagent, some magic chemical, may yet be found to 
bring out the whole of nature’s secret hand-writing 
for a greater than Daniel to interpret to his fellows. 
That will hardly be in our time. With the resources 
at present at our command we must be content with 
a very brief, imperfect, and in large measure con- 
jectural account of man’s mental and social develop- 
ment in prehistoric ages. As I have already pointed 
out, the evidence, fragmentary and dubious as it is, 
only runs back a very little way into the measureless 
past of human life on earth ; we soon lose the thread, 


1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 171-172. 


26 THE STUDY OF MAN 


the faintly glimmering thread, in the thick darkness 
of the absolutely unknown. Even in the com- 
paratively short space of time, a few thousand years 
at most, which falls more or less within our ken, 
there are many deep and wide chasms which can only 
be bridged by hypotheses, if the story of evolution 
is to run continuously. Such bridges are built in 
anthropology as in biology by the Comparative 
Method, which enables us to borrow the links of one 
chain of evidence to supply the gaps in another. 
For us who deal, not with the various forms of animal 
life, but with the various products of human in- 
telligence, the legitimacy of the Comparative Method 
rests on the well-ascertained similarity of the working 
of the human mind in all races of men. I have laid 
stress on the great inequalities which exist not only 
between the various races, but between men of the 
same race and generation; but it should be clearly 
understood and remembered that these divergencies 
are quantitative rather than qualitative, they consist 
in differences of degree rather than of kind. The 
savage is not a different sort of being from his civilized 
brother: he has the same capacities, mental and 
moral, but they are less fully developed : his evolution 
has been arrested, or rather retarded, at a lower level. 
And as savage races are not all on the same plane, 
but have stopped or tarried at different points of the 
upward path, we can to a certain extent, by comparing 
them with each other, construct a scale of social 
progression and mark out roughly some of the stages 
on the long road that leads from savagery to civiliza- 
tion. In the kingdom of mind such a scale of mental 
evolution answers to the scale of morphological 
evolution in the animal kingdom. 


THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT aa 


XIII 
THE SCIENTIFIC SPIRIT? 


Anthropology, or the study of man, claims a 
place for itself among the sciences. Of that study 
or science the history of institutions, with which we 
are here concerned, forms an important branch. 
It aims at tracing the growth, development, and 
decay of all human institutions from the earliest 
to the latest times, not merely recording the facts 
in chronological order, but referring them to their 
general causes in the physical and mental constitution 
of man and the influence of external nature. Now, 
if we are to pursue this study in a scientific spirit, we 
must endeavour to investigate the beliefs and customs 
of mankind with the same rigorous impartiality with 
which, for example, the zoologist investigates the 
habits of bees and ants. To attain that impartiality 
is indeed much harder for the anthropologist than for 
the zoologist, for the customs and superstitions even 
of the lowest savages touch us far more nearly than 
the habits even of the highest animals. The con- 
tinuity of human development has been such that 
most, if not all, of the great institutions which still 
form the framework of civilized society have their 
roots in savagery, and have been handed down to us 
in these later days through countless generations, 
assuming new outward forms in the process of trans- 
mission, but remaining in their inmost core sub- 
stantially unchanged. Such, for example, to take a 


1 The Magical Origin of Kings (Lectures on the Early History of the 
Kingshtp), pp. 2-4. 


28 THE STUDY OF MAN 


few conspicuous instances, are the institution of private 
property, the institution of marriage, the institution 
of war, and the worship of a god. Differences of 
opinion may exist, and have existed, as to the precise 
value of the inheritance ; as to the fact of it there can 
be none. ‘Thus in treating even of the rudest savages 
it is not easy, if I may say so, to keep our eyes fixed 
inflexibly on the object immediately before us. For 
we seem to bé standing at the sources of human 
history, and it is difficult to exclude from our mind 
the thought of the momentous consequences which in 
other ages and other lands have flowed from these 
simple beginnings, often from these apparently harm- 
less absurdities. And the farther we descend the 
stream of history, and the nearer we approach to our 
own age and country, the harder it becomes to main- 
tain an impartial attitude in the investigation of in- 
stitutions which have been fraught with so much 
happiness and so much misery for mankind. Yet, if 
we are to succeed in the inquiry, we must endeavour 
to approach it without prejudice and to pursue it with- 
out passion, bearing in mind that our aim is simply 
the ascertainment of truth, not the apportionment of 
praise or blame; that we are not judges, still less 
advocates, but merely inquirers; that it is for us, in 
the language of Spinoza, humanas actiones non ridere, 
non lugere, neque detestart, sed intelligere. 


1 Spinoza, 7ractatus Politicus, i. 
4: “Cum igitur animum ad Polttt- 
cam applicuerim, nthil quod novum vel 
tnauditum est, sed tantum ea, quae 
cum praxt optime conventunt, certa 
et indubitata ratione demonstrare, aut 
ex ipsa humanae naturae condttione 


deducere intendi; et ut ea, quae ad 
hanc sctentiam spectant, eadem animt 
libertate, qua res Mathematicas solemus, 
inguirerem, sedulo curavit, humanas 
actiones non ridere, non lugere, neque 
detestart, sed intelligere.” 


THE INDUCTIVE METHOD 29 


XIV 
THE INDUCTIVE METHOD! 


A science which rests on observation, as all the 
historical sciences necessarily do, may be taught in 
one of two ways. Either we may begin with a state- 
ment of general principles and then proceed to illus- 
trate it by individual cases; or, on the contrary, we 
may begin with the individual cases and from a com- 
parison of them with each other may endeavour to 
elicit those general laws which, in common parlance, 
are said to govern the particulars. The former is the 
deductive method, the latter is the inductive. 

Both methods have, like most other things, their 
respective advantages and disadvantages. The de- 
ductive method is, in appearance at least, the more 
scientific. There is an air of completeness, symmetry, 
and precision about it which is very taking. It gives 
us a bird’s-eye view of a subject which is easily grasped 
by the mind and retained by the memory. It is thus 
admirably adapted for exposition on the side of the 
teacher, and for learning on the side of the pupil. In 
other words, it is the best mode of imparting and 
acquiring information, whether for the sake of ex- 
aminations or for higher ends. For such purposes 
the inductive method is nearly useless. It plunges us 
at once into such a sea of particulars that it is diff- 
cult at first to find our bearings, that is, to perceive 
- the general principles which are to reduce this seeming 
chaos to order. To adopt a common and expressive 
phrase, it is hard to see the wood for the trees. Yet 
the serious disadvantage under which the inductive 

1 The Magical Origin of Kings, pp. 4-8. 


30 THE STUDY OF MAN 


method thus labours is perhaps more than compen- 
sated in another direction by one solid advantage— 
it is the method of discovery. In all sciences which 
rest on observation, discovery must ultimately proceed 
from the particular to the general, from the isolated 
observed instances to the abstract conception which 
binds them together. Apparent exceptions there are, 
but on examination they will always, I believe, be 
found to conform to the rule. Thus if the inductive 
method is unsuited to the acquisition, it is well suited 
to the extension, of knowledge ; if it does not train a 
student for examinations, it trains him for research. 
Apart from this general advantage possessed by 
the inductive method, there is a special reason why 
anthropology should adhere to it at the present time. 
In order to make a sound induction large collections 


of facts are necessary ; hence in the inductive sciences 


it is essential that a period of collection should precede 
a period of generalization. Not until great masses of 
observations have been accumulated and classified do 
the general laws which pervade them begin to appear 
on the surface. Now anthropology in general and 
the history of institutions in particular are still in the 
collecting stage. The prime want of the study is not 
so much theories as facts. This is especially true of 
that branch of the study which treats of origins ; for, 
as I have said, most great institutions may be traced 
back to savagery, and consequently for the early 
history of mankind the savage is our most precious 
document. It is only of late years that the document 
has received the attention it deserves; and unfor- 
tunately it is perishing under our eyes. Contact with 
civilization is rapidly effacing the old beliefs and 
customs of the savage, and is thereby obliterating 


as a 


THE INDUCTIVE METHOD 31 


records of priceless value for the history of our race. 
The most urgent need of anthropology at present is 
to procure accurate accounts of the existing customs 
and ideas of savages before they have disappeared. 
When these have been obtained, when the records 
existing in our libraries have been fully scrutinized, 
and when the whole body of information has been 
classified and digested, the philosophic historian will 
be able to formulate, with a fair degree of probability, 
those general laws which have shaped the intellectual, 
social, and moral evolution of mankind. 

That will not be done in our day. The great 
thinkers, the Newtons and Darwins of anthropology, 
will come after us. It is our business to prepare for 
them by collecting, sifting, and arranging the records 
in order that when, in the fullness of time, the master- 
mind shall arise and survey them, he may be able to 
detect at once that unity in multiplicity, that universal 
n the particulars, which has escaped us. The duty 
at present incumbent on the investigator is therefore 
to rake together the facts, whether, like some of my 
friends, he goes for them at the peril of his life to 
savage lands, or merely unearths them at his ease 
from the dust of libraries. The time has gone by 
when dreamers like Rousseau could reconstruct the his- 
tory of society out of their own minds, and their dreams 
could be accepted as visions of a golden age to come, 
their voices listened to like angel trumpets heralding 
the advent of a new heaven and a new earth. It is 
not for the anthropologist of to-day to blow these high 
notes, to build these gay castles in the clouds. His 
task is the soberer, duller one of laying, in the patient 
accumulation of facts, the foundations of a structure 
more solid and enduring than the glittering fantasies 


32 THE STUDY OF MAN 


of Rousseau’s dream. Yet he too may prove in the 
end to be a pioneer of revolution, a revolution all the 
surer and more lasting because it will be slow and 
peaceful. 

Thus the method of anthropology is induction, 
and at present its students are engaged in compiling 
and arranging their materials rather than in evolving 
general theories out of them. Yet a certain amount 
of preliminary generalization is legitimate and indeed 
necessary. The work even of observation can hardly 
be accomplished without some intermixture of theory 
to direct the observer’s attention to points which he 
might otherwise overlook or regard as too insignificant 
to be worthy of record. But these provisional hypo- 
theses should be held very loosely ; we must always 
be ready to modify or discard them when they are 
found to conflict with fresh evidence. The advance 
of knowledge in this, as in every other field, consists 
in a progressive readjustment of theory to fact, of con- 
ception to perception, of thought to experience ; and 
as that readjustment, though more and more exact, 
can never be perfect, the advance is infinite. 


XV 


THE OSCILLATIONS OF THE SOCIAL 
PENDULUM}? 


About the social condition of primaeval man we 
know absolutely nothing, and it is vain to speculate. 
Our first parents may have been as strict mono- 
gamists as Whiston or Dr. Primrose, or they may 
have been just the reverse. We have no information 


* The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 165-166. 


THE MIRAGE OF A GOLDEN AGE 33 


on the subject, and are never likely to get any. In 
the countless ages which have elapsed since man and 
woman first roamed the happy garden hand in hand 
or jabbered like apes among the leafy boughs of the 
virgin forest, their relations to each other may have 
undergone innumerable changes. For human affairs, 
like the courses of the heaven, seem to run in cycles: 
the social pendulum swings to and fro from one 
extremity of the scale to the other: in the political 
sphere it has swung from democracy to despotism, and 
back again from despotism to democracy; and so in 
the domestic sphere it may have oscillated many a 
time between libertinism and monogamy. 


XVI 
THE MIRAGE OF A GOLDEN AGE}? 


By some strange witchery, some freak of the fairy 
imagination, who plays us so many tricks, man per- 
petually conjures up for himself the mirage of a Golden 
Age in the far past or the far future, dreaming of a 
bliss that never was and may never be. So far as the 
past is concerned, it is the sad duty of anthropology 
to break that dream, to dispel that mirage, to paint 
savagery in its true colours. I have attempted to do 
so in this book. I have extenuated nothing, I have 
softened nothing, and I hope I have exaggerated 
nothing. As a plain record of a curious form of 
society which must soon be numbered with the past, 
the book may continue to possess an interest even 
when, with the progress of knowledge, its errors shall 
have been corrected and its theories perhaps super- 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i., Preface, pp. xv-xvi. 
D 


34 THE STUDY OF MAN 


seded by others which make a nearer approach to truth. 
For though I have never hesitated either to frame 
theories which seemed to fit the facts or to throw them 
away when they ceased to do so, my aim in this and 
my other writings has not been to blow bubble hypo- 
theses which glitter for a moment and are gone; it 
has been by a wide collection and an exact classifica- 
tion of facts to lay a broad and solid foundation for 
the inductive study of primitive man. 


XVII 
THE CLASH OF CULTURES! 


The old view that savages have degenerated from a 
higher level of culture, on which their forefathers once 
stood, is destitute alike of evidence and of probability. 
On the contrary, the information which we possess as 
to the lower races, meagre and fragmentary as it un- 
fortunately is, all seems to point to the conclusion that 
on the whole even the most savage tribes have reached 
their low level of culture from one still lower, and that 
the upward movement, though so slow as to be almost 
imperceptible, has yet been real and steady up to the 
point where savagery has come into contact with 
civilization. The moment of such contact isa critical 
one for the savages. If the intellectual, moral, and 
social interval which divides them from the civilized 
intruders exceeds a certain degree, then it appears 
that sooner or later the savages must inevitably perish ; 
the shock of collision with a stronger race is too violent 
to be withstood, the weaker goes to the wall and is 
shattered. But if on the other hand the breach 


* The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 88-89. 


THE HUMAN COMEDY 35 


between the two conflicting races is not so wide as to 
be impassable, there is a hope that the weaker may 
assimilate enough of the higher culture of the other 
tosurvive. It was so, for example, with our’ barbarous 
forefathers in contact with the ancient civilizations of 
Greece and Rome; and it may be so in future with 
some, for example, of the black races of the present 
day in contact with European civilization. Time will 
show. 


XVIII 
THE HUMAN COMEDY! 


Man isa very curious animal, and the more we know 
of his habits the more curious does he appear. He 
may be the most rational of the beasts, but certainly 
he is the most absurd. Even the saturnine wit of 
Swift, unaided by a knowledge of savages, fell far 
short of the reality in his attempt to set human folly 
in a strong light. Yet the odd thing is that in spite, 
or perhaps by virtue, of his absurdities man moves 
steadily upwards; the more we learn of his past history 
the more groundless does the old theory of his de- 
generacy prove to be. From false premises he often 
arrives at sound conclusions : from a chimerical theory 
he deduces a salutary practice. This discourse will 
have served a useful purpose if it illustrates a few of 
the ways in which folly mysteriously deviates into 
wisdom, and good comes out of evil. It is a mere 
sketch of a vast subject. Whether I shall ever fill in 
these bald outlines with finer strokes and deeper 
shadows must be left to the future to determine. The 
materials for such a picture exist in abundance; and 


36 THE STUDY OF MAN 


if the colours are dark, they are yet illuminated, as I 
have tried in this essay to point out, by a ray of con- 
solation and hope. 


XIX 
ACTION THE TOUCHSTONE OF BELIEF! 


The thought of the savage is apt to be vague and 
inconsistent ; he neither represents his ideas clearly to 
his own mind nor can he express them lucidly to 


others, even if he wishes to do so. And his thought 


is not only vague and inconsistent; it is fluid and 
unstable, liable to shift and change under alien in- 
fluence. For these and other reasons, such as the 
distrust of strangers and the difficulty of language, 
which often interposes a formidable barrier between 
savage man and the civilized inquirer, the domain of 
primitive beliefs is beset by so many snares and pitfalls 
that we might almost despair of arriving at the truth, 
were it not that we possess a clue to guide us on the 
dark and slippery way. That clue is action. While 
it is generally very difficult to ascertain what any man 
thinks, it is comparatively easy to ascertain what he 
does ; and what a man does, not what he says, is the 
surest touchstone to his real belief. Hence when we 
attempt to study the religion of backward races, the 
ritual which they practise is generally a safer indica- 
tion of their actual creed than the loudest profession 
of faith. 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. p. 143. 


EY ON ye 
L285 


THE RATIONALITY OF THE SAVAGE 37 


XX 
THE RATIONALITY OF THE SAVAGE}! 


I think we may lay it down as a well-established 
truth that savages in general, so far as they are known 
to us, have certain more or less definite theories, whether 
we call them religious or philosophical, by which they 
regulate their conduct, and judged by which their 
acts, however absurd they may seem to the civilized 
man, are really both rational and intelligible. Hence 
it is, in my opinion, a profound mistake hastily to 
conclude that because the behaviour of the savage 
does not agree with our notions of what is reasonable, 
natural, and proper, it must therefore necessarily be 
illogical, the result of blind impulse rather than of 
deliberate thought and calculation. No doubt the 
savage, like the civilized man, does often act purely 
on impulse; his passions overmaster his reason, and 
sweep it away before them. He is probably indeed 
much more impulsive, much more liable to be whirled 
about by gusts of emotion than we are; yet it would 
_be unfair to judge his life as a whole by these occasional 
outbursts rather than by its general tenour, which to 
those who know him from long observation reveals 
a groundwork of logic and reason resembling our own 
in its operations, though differing from ours in the 
premises from which it sets out. I think it desirable 
to emphasize the rational basis of savage life because 
it has been the fashion of late years with some writers 
to question or rather deny it. According to them, if 
I understand them aright, the savage acts first and 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 265-266. 


38 THE STUDY OF MAN 


invents his reasons, generally very absurd reasons, 
for so doing afterwards. Significantly enough, the 
writers who argue in favour of the essential irration- 
ality of savage conduct have none of them, I believe, 
any personal acquaintance with savages. Their con- 
clusions are based not on observation but on purely 
theoretical deductions, a most precarious foundation 
on which to erect a science of man or indeed of any- 
thing. As such, they cannot be weighed in the 
balance against the positive testimony of many 
witnesses who have lived for years with the savage 
and affirm emphatically the logical basis which 
underlies and explains his seeming vagaries. At all 
events I for one have no hesitation in accepting the 
evidence of such men to matters of fact with which 
they are acquainted, and I unhesitatingly reject all 
theories which directly contradict that evidence. If 
there ever has been any race of men who invariably 
acted first and thought afterwards, I can only say 
that in the course of my reading and observation I 
have never met with any trace of them, and I am 
apt to suppose that, if they ever existed anywhere 
but in the imagination of bookish dreamers, their 
career must have been an exceedingly short one, 
since in the struggle for existence they would surely 
succumb to adversaries who tempered and directed 
the blind fury of combat with at least a modicum 
of reason and sense. The myth of the illogical or 
prelogical savage may safely be relegated to that 
museum of learned absurdities and abortions which 
speculative anthropology is constantly enriching with 
fresh specimens of misapplied ingenuity and wasted 
industry. 


EXISTING SAVAGES NOT ABSOLUTELY PRIMITIVE 39 


XXI 


EXISTING SAVAGES NOT ABSOLUTELY 
PRIMITIVE! 


But here it is necessary to guard against a common 
misapprehension. The savages of to-day are primi- 
tive only in a relative, not in an absolute sense.. They 
are ré_primitive. by comparison with us; but they are 
not primitive by comparison with truly primaeval 
man, that is, with man as he was when he first emerged 
from the purely bestial stage of existence. Indeed, 
compared with man in his absolutely pristine state 
even the lowest savage of to-day is doubtless a highly 
developed and cultured being, since all evidence and 
all probability are in favour of the view that every 
existing race of men, the rudest as well as the most 
civilized, has reached its present level of culture, 
whether it be high or low, only after a slow and painful 
progress upwards, which must have extended over 
many thousands, perhaps millions, of years. There- 
fore when we speak of any known savages as primitive, 
which the usage of the English language permits us 
to do, it should always be remembered that we apply 
the term primitive to them in a relative, not in an 
absolute sense. What we mean is that their culture 
is rudimentary compared with that of the civilized 
nations, but not by any means that it is identical 
with that of primaeval man. It is necessary to 
emphasize this relative use of the term primitive in 
its application to all known savages without excep- 
tion, because the ambiguity arising from the double 


1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 163-164. 


40 THE STUDY OF MAN 


meaning of the word has been the source of much 
confusion and misunderstanding. Careless or un- 
scrupulous writers have made great play with it for 
purposes of controversy, using the word now in the 
one sense and now in the other as it suited their 
argument at the moment, without perceiving, or at 
all events without indicating, the equivocation. In 
order to avoid these verbal fallacies it is only necessary 
to bear steadily in mind that while Social Anthropology 
has much to say of primitive man in the relative sense, 
it has nothing whatever to say about primitive man in 
the absolute sense, and that for the very simple reason 
that it knows nothing whatever about him, and, so 
far as we can see at present, is never likely to know 
anything. To construct a history of human society 
by starting from absolutely primordial man and 
working down through thousands or millions of 
years to the institutions of existing savages might 
possibly have merits as a flight of imagination, but 
it could have none as a work of science. To do this 
would be exactly to reverse the proper mode of 
scientific procedure. It would be to work @ priorz 
from the unknown to the known instead of @ posteriori 
from the known to the unknown. For we do know 
a good deal about the social state of the savages of 
to-day and yesterday, but we know nothing whatever, 
I repeat, about absolutely primitive human society. 
Hence a sober inquirer who seeks to elucidate the 
social evolution of mankind in ages before the dawn 
of history must start, not from an unknown and purely 
hypothetical primaeval man, but from the lowest 
savages whom we know or possess adequate records 
of; and from their customs, beliefs, and traditions 
as a solid. basis of fact he may work back a little way 


THE LOWLY NOT NECESSARILY DEGRADED 41 


hypothetically through the obscurity of the past ; 
that is, he may form a reasonable theory of the way 
in which these actual customs, beliefs, and traditions 
have grown up and developed in a period more or 
less remote, but probably not very remote, from the 
one in which they have been observed and recorded. 
But if, as I assume, he is a sober inquirer, he will 
never expect to carry back this reconstruction of human 
history very far, still less will he dream of linking it 
up with the very beginning, because he is aware that 
we possess no evidence which would enable us to 
bridge even hypothetically the gulf of thousands or 
millions of years which divides the savage of to-day 
from primaeval man. 


XXII 
THE LOWLY NOT NECESSARILY DEGRADED } 


Lowness in the scale of humanity is sometimes_ 
confounded with degradation, with which it has_no 
necessary connexion. Similarly in the animal creation 
the ant, the bee, the elephant, and the dog are low in 
the scale by comparison with man, but they are not 
degraded, and it would be a calumny to describe 
them as stupid, lazy, brutal, and so on; for many 
of these creatures display a degree of intelligence and 
industry, of courage and affection, which should put 
many men to shame. 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. p. 342. 


42 THE STUDY OF MAN 


XXIII 
THE MEANING OF FOLK-LORE}! 


Modern researches into the early history of man, 
conducted on different lines, have converged with 
almost irresistible force on the conclusion, that all 
civilized races have at some period or other emerged 
from a state of savagery resembling more or less closely 
the state in which many backward races have con- 
tinued to the present time; and that, long after the 
majority of men in a community have ceased to think 
and act like savages, not a few traces of the old ruder 
modes of life and thought survive in the habits and 
institutions of the people. Such survivals are in- 
cluded under the head of folk-lore, which, in the 
broadest sense of the word, may be said to embrace 
the whole body of a people’s traditionary beliefs and 
customs, so far as these appear to be due to the col- 
lective action of the multitude and cannot be traced 
_to the individual influence of great men. Despite the 
high moral and religious development of the ancient 
Hebrews, there is no reason to suppose that they 
formed an exception to this general law. They, too, 
had probably passed through a stage of barbarism 
and even of savagery; and this probability, based 
on the analogy of other races, is confirmed by an 
examination of their literature, which contains many 
references to beliefs and. practices that can hardly be 
explained except on the supposition that they are rudi- 
mentary survivals from a far lower level of culture. 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol, i., Preface, p. vii. 


ee a ee, 


FOLK-LORE AND.POETRY 43 


XXIV 
FOLK-LORE AND POETRY! 


The folk-lore of scents has yet to be studied. In 
investigating it, as every other branch of folk-lore, 
the student may learn much from the poets, who 
perceive by intuition what most of us have to learn by 
a laborious collection of facts. Indeed, without some 
touch of poetic fancy, it is hardly possible to enter into 
the heart of the people. A frigid rationalist will knock 
in vain at the magic rose-wreathed portal of fairy- 
land. The porter will not open to Mr. Gradgrind. 


XXV 


THE BACKWARDNESS OF ABORIGINAL MAN 
IN AUSTRALIA ? 


Among the great land masses or continents of the 
world Australia is at once the smallest and the most 
isolated, and hence its plants and animals are in 
‘general of a less developed and more archaic type than 
those of the other continents. For the same reason 
aboriginal man has remained on the whole, down to 
the present day, in a more primitive state in Australia 
than elsewhere. In the struggle for existence pro- 
gress depends mainly on competition: the more 
numerous the competitors the fiercer is the struggle, 
and the more rapid, consequently, is evolution. The 
comparatively small area of Australia, combined with 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. ii. p. 516. 
2 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 92-93. 


44 THE STUDY OF MAN 


its physical features—notably the arid and desert 
nature of a large part of the country—has always 
restricted population, and by restricting population 
has retarded progress. This holds true above all of 
the central region, which is not only cut off from the 
outer world by its position, but is also isolated by 
natural barriers from the rest of the continent. Here, 
then, in the secluded heart of the most secluded con- 
tinent the scientific inquirer might reasonably expect 
to find the savage in his very lowest depths, to detect 
humanity in the chrysalis stage, to mark the first blind 
gropings of our race after freedom and light. 


XXVI 


THE TIDE OF PROGRESS SETTING FROM 
THE SEA! 


The interior of a country. is naturally less open to 
foreign influence than its coasts, and is therefore more 
tenacious of old ways. But quite apart from any 
foreign influence, which before the coming of Euro- 
peans seems hardly to have affected the Australian 
race, there is a special cause why the coastal tribes of 
Australia should take the first steps towards civiliza- 
tion, and that is the greater abundance of water and 
food in their country as compared with the parched and 
barren tablelands of the interior. Central Australia 
lies in the desert zone of the southern hemisphere, and 
has no high mountains to intercept and condense the 
vapours from the surrounding ocean. The most exten- 
sive tract of fertile and well-watered country is on the 
east and south-east, where a fine range of mountains 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 167-169. 


THE TIDE OF PROGRESS 45 


approaches, in the colony of Victoria, the limits of 
perpetual snow. And in the north, on the shores of 
the Gulf of Carpentaria, a heavier rainfall produces 
a more abundant vegetation and a more plentiful 
supply of food than can be found in the arid wilderness 
of the interior. Thus, even among the rude savages 
of Australia, we can detect the operation of those 
natural laws which have ordained that elsewhere all 
the great civilizations of the world should arise in well- 
watered and fertile lands within the atmospheric in- 
fluence of the sea. An abundant supply of good food 
stimulates progress in more ways than one. By 
leaving men with leisure on their hands it affords them 
greater opportunities for observation and thought 
than are enjoyed by people whose whole energies are 
absorbed in an ardous struggle for a bare subsistence ; 
and by improving the physical stamina of the race 
it strengthens and sharpens the intellectual faculties, 
which, in the long run, are always depressed and im- 
paired by a poor and meagre diet. Thus, if in Aus- 
tralia the tide of progress, slow but perceptible, has 
set from the sea towards the interior, it has probably 
been in large measure under the impulse of a more 
plentiful supply of food, which in its turn is due to the 
heavier rainfall on the coast and the neighbouring - 
regions. 


XXVII 


MATERIAL PROGRESS THE MEASURE OF 
INTELLECTUAL ADVANCE! 


It is natural and perhaps inevitable that man’s 
earliest efforts to ameliorate his lot should be directed 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 325-326. 


46 THE STUDY OF MAN 


towards the satisfaction of his physical wants, since 
the material side of his nature is the indispensable 
basis on which, in a material world, his intellectual 
and moral being must rest. But material progress 
in the arts and comforts of life is at the same time a 
sure sign of intellectual progress, since every imple- 
ment, from the rudest club of the lowest savage to 
the most complex and delicate machine of modern 
science, is nothing but the physical embodiment of 
an idea which preceded it in the mind of man. 
» Hence in the evolution of culture, mental improve- 
‘ ment is the prime factor, the moving cause; material 
\| improvement is secondary, it follows the other as its 
effect. It would be well if the shallow rhetoricians 
who rail at the advance of mechanical science in our 
own age could apprehend this truth. They would 
then see that in arraigning what they do not under- | 
stand they are really arraigning that upward move- 
ment in the mind of man which, though we know 
neither its origin nor its goal, is yet the source of all 
that is best and noblest in human nature. 

From these considerations it follows that a people’s 
progress in the material arts is not only the most 
obvious but on the whole the surest measure of its 
intellectual and social progress. The highest types 
of human intellect and character are never found 
among naked, houseless, artless savages; they are 
only found in countries and in ages which have 
attained to the highest pitch of material civilization, 
which have carried the arts and crafts to their greatest 
perfection. It is in towns, not in the wilderness, that 
the fairest flowers of humanity have bloomed. True 
civilization begins, as the very name suggests, with 
the foundation of cities. Where no such ganglia 


EVOLUTION AND DIFFUSION OF CULTURE 47 


of concentrated energy exist, the population is savage 
or barbarous. 


XXVIII 


EVOLUTION AND DIFFUSION OF CULTURE! 


The record of man’s mental development is even 
more imperfect than the record of his physical develop- 
ment, and it is harder to read, not only by reason of 
the incomparably more subtle and complex nature of 
the subject, but because the reader’s eyes are apt to 
be dimmed by thick mists of passion and prejudice, 
which cloud in a far less degree the fields of com- 
parative anatomy and geology. My contribution 
to the history of the human mind consists of little 
more than a rough and purely provisional classification 
of facts gathered almost entirely from printed sources. 
If there is one general conclusion which seems to 
emerge from the mass of particulars, I venture to 
think that it is the essential similarity in the work- 
ing of the less developed human mind among. all 
races, which corresponds to the essential similarity in 
their bodily frame revealed by comparative anatomy. 
But while this general mental similarity may, I 
believe, be taken as established, we must always be 
on our guard against tracing to it a multitude of 
particular resemblances which may be and often are 
-due to simple diffusion, since nothing is more certain 
than that the various races of men have borrowed 
from each other many of their arts and crafts, their 
ideas, customs, and institutions. To sift out the 
elements of culture which a race has independently 


1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. i., Preface, pp. 
Vi-vii. 


48 THE STUDY’ OF MAN 


evolved and to distinguish them accurately from 
those which it has derived from other races is a task 
of extreme difficulty and delicacy, which promises 
to occupy students of man for a long time to come; 
indeed, so complex are the facts and so imperfect 
in most cases is the historical record that it may be 
doubted whether in regard to many of the lower 
races we shall ever arrive at more than probable 
conjectures. 


XXIX 


SIMILARITIES OF CUSTOM, AND THEIR 
ORIGIN ? 


How are we to explain the numerous and striking 
similarities which obtain between the beliefs and 
customs of races inhabiting distant parts of the world ? 
Are such resemblances due to the transmission of 
the customs and beliefs from one race to another, 
either by immediate contact or through the medium 
of intervening peoples? Or have they arisen inde- 
pendently in many different races through the similar 
working of the human mind under similar circum- 
stances ? Now, if I may presume to offer an opinion 
on this much-debated problem, I would say at once 
that, put in the form of an antithesis between mutually 
exclusive views, the question seems to me absurd. 
So far as I can judge, all experience and all probability 
are in favour of the conclusion, that both causes have 
operated extensively and powerfully to produce the 
observed similarities of custom and belief among the 
various races of mankind.:. in other words, many of 
these resemblances are to be explained by simple 

1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. i. pp. 106-107. 


SIMILARITIES OF CUSTOM, AND THEIR ORIGIN 49 


transmission, with more or less of modification, from 
people to people, and many are to be explained as 
having originated independently through the similar 


action of the human mind in response to to similar 


“environment. If that is so—and I confess to thinking 
that this is the only reasonable and probable view— 

it will follow that in attempting to account for any 
particular case of resemblance which may be traced 
between the customs and beliefs of different races, 
it would be futile to appeal to the general principle 
either of transmission or of independent origin ; each 
case must be judged on its own merits after an impartial 
scrutiny of the facts and referred to the one or the 
other principle, or possibly to a combination of the 
two, according as the balance of evidence inclines 
to the one side or to the other, or hangs evenly between 
them. — 

This general conclusion, which accepts the two 
principles of transmission and independent origin 
as both of them true and valid within certain limits, 
is confirmed by the particular investigation of diluvial 
traditions. For it is certain that_legends of a great 
flood ar are found dispersed among many diverse peoples 
in in distant regions of the earth, and so far as demon- 
stration in such matters is possible, it can be demon- 

“strated that the similarities which undoubtedly exist 
between many of these legends are due partly to 
direct transmission from one people to another, and 
partly to similar, but quite independent, experiences 
either of great floods or of phenomena which suggested 
the occurrence of great floods, in many different parts 
of the world. Thus the study of these traditions, 
quite apart from any conclusions to which it may 


lead us concerning their historical credibility, may 
E 


50 THE STUDY OF MAN 


serve a useful purpose if it mitigates the heat with 
which the controversy has sometimes been carried on, 
by convincing the extreme partisans of both principles 
that in this as in so many other disputes the truth lies 
wholly neither on the one side nor on the other, but 
somewhere between the two. 


XXX 


THE QUESTION OF SINGLE OR MULTIPLE 
ORIGINS? 


Ayant terminé ce bref. exposé des considérations 
générales qui m’ont porté depuis longtemps vers 
l’étude de nos sauvages, je demanderai la permission 
de vous entretenir quelques minutes sur un probleme 
d’origine dont quelques savants chez nous se sont 
beaucoup occupés durant ces derniéres années: je 
veux dire la question de lorigine unique ou multiple 
des idées, des arts, et des institutions. I] s’agit d’ex- 
‘pliquer les grandes ressemblances d’idées, d’arts, et 
d’institutions qui se font remarquer parmi les tribus 
sauvages, méme les plus diverses et les plus éloignées 
de par le monde. On se demande si ces ressemblances 
viennent de ce que l’esprit humain se ressemble par- 
tout, et par conséquent qu’il produit partout des idées, 
des arts, des institutions semblables, comme des 
machines faites d’aprés le méme modele fabriquent des 
produits semblables ; ou bien si ces ressemblances 
proviennent de ce que les _gens s’empruntent_leur leurs 
idées, leurs arts, leurs institutions ‘Tes uns aux autres, 
de sorte que si l’on pouvait tracer l’histoire de toutes 


1 The Gorgon’ s Head and other Literary Pieces, “ Sur Etude des Origines 
humaines,” pp. 348-355. 


THE QUESTION OF SINGLE OR MULTIPLE ORIGINS 51 


ces idées, de tous ces arts, et de toutes ces institutions 
jusqu’a leur source, on trouverait que chacune d’elles 
n’a tiré son origine que d’un seul cerveau humain, 
d’ot: elle s’est répandue en des cercles toujours crois- 
sants de par le monde. En un mot, les idées, les arts, 
les institutions communes a plusieurs peuples, sont- 
elles d’origine diverse ou unique? Sont-elles l’ceuvre 
de plusieurs individus ou d’un seul ? 

Comme vous voyez, ce sont deux hypotheses 
contraires. Pour considérer d’abord l’hypothése 
d’apres laquelle chaque idée, chaque art, chaque ins- 
_ titution a tiré son origine d’un seul individu, auquel 
tout le reste du monde l’a emprunté depuis, soit 
directement, soit indirectement par l’entremise des 
autres, il est certain qu’une grande partie des idées, 
des arts, des institutions humaines se sont répandus 
de cette fagon de par la terre. Le fait est trop évident 
pour que j/aie besoin d’y insister longuement. Con- 
sidérez, par exemple, les grandes découvertes scienti- 
‘fiques et les grandes inventions mécaniques_de_nos 
jours. Aussitét qu’un esprit supérieur vient de 
découvrir une nouvelle loi de la nature ou d’inventer 
un nouveau mécanisme propre soit 4 améliorer la vie 
humaine soit a la détruire de la fagon la plus facile et 
la plus rapide possible, tout le monde se hate de 
s’approprier cette belle découverte soit pour ‘son 
propre bénéfice soit pour |’extermination radicale de 
ses voisins. Ainsi par voie d’emprunt la nouvelle idée 
ou'la nouvelle invention se propage partout et bientét 
a fait le tour du monde. C’est également ainsi, mais 
beaucoup plus lentement, que les grandes religions, 
comme le Bouddhisme, le Christianisme, le Mahomé- 
tisme, se sont répandues sur la terre. I] n’y a eu qu’un 
seul Bouddha, un seul Christ, un seul Mahomet ; 


52 THE STUDY OF MAN 


c’est du cerveau solitaire de chacun de ces trois grands 
génies que ces créations gigantesques sont nées, et 
c’est par la voie de communication et d’emprunt 
qu’elles se sont propagées a travers le monde et a 
travers les sieécles. 

Mais quelque téméraire qu’il soit de nier que les 
hommes s’empruntent leurs idées, leurs arts, et leurs 
institutions les uns aux autres, il serait aussi téméraire, 
a mon avis, de prétendre qu’un seul homme parmi tant 
de millions d’>hommes ait été capable de trouver telle 
ou telle vérité, d’inventer tel ou tel mécanisme, de 
créer telle ou telle institution ; et que jusqu’a ce que 
ce génie unique ait paru sur la terre, tous les autres 
hommes aient di rester sans la connaissance de cette 
idée, sans l’emploi de ce mécanisme, sans la pratique 
de cette institution. Soutenir une telle these serait 
vraiment porter contre la nature humaine une accusa- 
tion d’imbécillité qu’elle n’a pas méritée. Au contraire, 
l’expérience semble avoir démontré que des hommes 
différents peuvent tres bien concevoir les mémes idées 
et faire les mémes découvertes indépendamment les uns 
des autres, méme quand il s’agit d’idées trés complexes 
et de découvertes tres difficiles. Pour ne pas recourir 
au cas célebre du calcul différentiel inventé, dit-on, 
simultanément par Newton et Leibnitz, tout le monde 
sait que votre grand astronome Leverrier‘ et notre 
grand astronome: Adams ont découvert presque au 
méme moment et indépendamment I’un de I’autre la 
planéete Neptune par des calculs mathématiques trés 
compliqués et trés subtils que tous les deux ont basés 
sur l’observation des perturbations de la planéte 
Uranus. Quelques années plus tard nos deux grands 
biologues Darwin et Wallace ont imaginé simultané- 


1 This discourse was addressed to a French audience in the Sorbonne 


THE QUESTION OF SINGLE OR MULTIPLE ORIGINS 53 


ment et indépendamment Il’un de Il’autre la méme 
théorie pour expliquer |’évolution organique et 1’ori- 
gine des espéces tant végétales qu’animales. Or cette 
théorie, loin d’étre simple et évidente, était fondée sur 
une longue série d’observations multiples et de con- 
sidérations variées et profondes, qui avaient occupé ces 
deux hommes éminents pendant beaucoup d’années. 

Avec de tels exemples de grandes découvertes 
scientifiques faites, pour ainsi dire, sous nos yeux et 
presque de notre temps, comment peut-on soutenir 
que jamais la méme idée ne peut venir a |’esprit de 
deux hommes a la fois? Que pour la découverte 
de ses arts, de ses sciences, de ses institutions, la race 
humaine dépend du hasard qui fait que la nature 
ou la fortune a doué un seul individu de facultés tout 
a fait exceptionnelles et hors ligne? Pour moi, sans 
nourrir des idées exagérées sur la grandeur de |’esprit 
humain, je ne le concois pas si obtus, si dénué d’intelli- 
gence qu'une telle théorie le présupposerait. 

Donc, pour revenir 4 nos sauvages, je crois que, 
tandis que beaucoup des ressemblances qu’on trouve 
dans les idées, dans les arts, dans les institutions de 
tribus différentes s’expliquent par la théorie d’emprunt, 
certaines autres se sont produites indépendamment 
les unes des autres, grace a la similitude de l’esprit 
humain, qui partout, pour répondre aux mémes 
besoins de la vie, sait trouver des inventions a peu 
prés pareilles. Certes, a l’égard des découvertes les 
plus simples, personne, je crois, ne contesterait la 
possibilité que des hommes puissent indépendamment 
arriver aux mémes conclusions. Prenez, par exemple, 
les propositions les plus élémentaires de l’arithmétique. 
Que deux et deux font quatre est une vérité, je pense, 
_ indiscutable méme d’aprés Einstein. Eh bien, doit-on 


54 THE STUDY OF MAN 


supposer que cette vérité ait été découverte une fois 
pour toutes par un génie mathématique extraordinaire, 
une sorte de Galilée embryonnaire, et que de sa seule 
bouche tout le reste du monde I’ait apprise et qu’on 
l’ait cru sur parole? Personne, je pense, ne sou- 
tiendrait une telle absurdité. On pourrait multiplier 
a lVinfini de tels exemples. Que le soleil se léve en 
apparence chaque jour a l’est et se couche a |’ouest 
est une vérité qui assurément n’a pas échappé a la 
généralité de nos aieux sauvages: ils n’ont pas da’ 
attendre la naissance d’un astronome de génie pour 
vérifier une observation que chaque homme et méme 
chaque enfant peut faire tous les. jours pour lui- 
méme. 

Mais aprés qu’on a écarté les idées les plus simples 
et les découvertes les plus faciles, 4 l’égard desquelles 
personne n’oserait nier qu’elles ont pu venir a l’esprit 
de beaucoup d’hommes indépendamment les uns 
des autres, il reste un grand nombre d’idées plus 
complexes et de découvertes plus difficiles tres ré- 
pandues dans le monde, a propos desquelles on peut 
se demander sans absurdité: chacune d’elles a-t-elle 
été trouvée par un seul individu ou par plusieurs? 
A-t-elle eu une origine unique ou multiple? Prenons, 
par exemple, la grande découverte du feu, la plus 
importante ncure ie Tania sda de 
l’humanité, puisque plus que toute autre chose l’usage 
du feu_distingue l’homme de ses anciens rivaux, les 
fauv@s. On peut se demander: cette grande dé- 
_couverte a-t-elle été faite par un seul ‘homme, le 
Prométhée primitif, qui a ensuite communiqué le 
bienfait 4 tout le reste du monde, ou bien plusieurs 
hommes en des lieux différents ont-ils appris indé- 
pendamment les uns des autres a utiliser et surtout 


THE QUESTION OF SINGLE OR MULTIPLE ORIGINS 55 


a produire le feu, soit en frottant des morceaux de 
bois, soit en frappant des silex l’un contre |’autre ? 
A cette question |’état de nos connaissances ne permet 
pas de donner une réponse dogmatique. Mais s’il 
m’est permis d’exprimer une opinion sur un sujet 
si discutable, il me parait vraisemblable que la décou- 
verte a été faite par plusieurs indépendamment plutét 
que par un seul homme une fois pour toutes. Si l’on 
songe que selon toutes les probabilités l’>homme a 
trouvé la fagon de produire le feu par un simple hasard, 
soit en trouant du bois, soit en coupant du silex pour 
se faire un outil de pierre; et si l’on songe ensuite au 
nombre de fois que les hommes sauvages ont troué 
du bois et coupé du silex, on conviendra, je crois, que 
ce hasard heureux a dii se reproduire mille fois, et 
que par conséquent la grande découverte a di se 
répéter mille fois dans les temps préhistoriques. 
Donc, il n’est nullement nécessaire de recourir a la 
légende d’un Prométhée solitaire pour expliquer 
l’usage universel du feu parmi les hommes. 

On peut dire la méme chose a |’égard d’autres arts 
qu’on trouve répandus parmi les sauvages, tels que 
ceux d’apprivoiser les animaux, de travailler les 


NER ET erm 


métaux, de labourer la terre. I] est possible et méme 


‘probable que la découverte de chacun de ces.procédés 
utiles s’est répétée 4 plusieurs reprises en plusieurs 
parties du monde. 

Si l’on nous demande: comment distinguer les 
découvertes faites une fois pour toutes des découvertes 
répétées ? il faut avouer qu’un critérium précis nous 
manque, puisque pour résoudre le probleme nous 
ne disposons que de conjectures plus ou moins vrai- 
semblables. Mais en général on peut dire que plus 
une découverte est simple, plus il devient probable 


56 | THE STUDY OF MAN 


| quelle a été répétée plusieurs fois dans I’histoire ; 
~ tandis que plus elle est complexe, plus on est autorisé 
& croire qu’elle a été trouvée une fois pour toutes 
par un génie extraordinaire. En d’autres termes, a 
l’égard des découvertes faites par l’homme, la pro- 
babilité d’une origine unique pour chacune d’elles 
varie en proportion directe de la complexité des idées 
qu’elle implique. Cependant les exemples que j’ai 
cités de grandes découvertes scientifiques faites par 
plus d’un savant a la fois doivent nous avertir de ne 
pas borner trop étroitement la fertilité du génie humain 
en supposant que, comme la plante d’aloés, il est in- 
capable de faire pousser plus d’une fois méme les plus 
belles fleurs de la science. 

Enfin, pour citer un seul exemple des inventions 
que le génie humain semble incapable d’enfanter plus 
d’une fois, je nommerai les contes populaires que 
Perrault et les fréres Grimm, pour ne pas parler 
d’autres, ont rendus si familiers et si chers a nous tous. 
Dans les plus célébres de ces charmantes créations il 
me semble que les idées sont trop nombreuses et leur 
combinaison trop complexe pour nous permettre de 
supposer que plusieurs esprits, sans connaissance les 
uns des autres, ont pu les imaginer et les disposer de 
facon a en faire des ensembles 4 la fois si artificiels 
et si gracieux. D2/ailleurs je suis prét 4 suivre les 
meilleures autorités en croyant qu’au moins une 
grande partie de ce trésor spirituel a été léguée au 
monde par I’ Inde. 


THE DANGER OF EXCESSIVE SIMPLIFICATION — 57 


XXXI 
THE DANGER OF EXCESSIVE SIMPLIFICATION } 


He who investigates the history of institutions 
should constantly bear in mind the extreme complexity 
of the causes which have built up the fabric of human 
society, and should be on his guard against a subtle 
danger incidental to all science, the tendency to. 
simplify unduly the infinite variety of the phenomena 
by fixing our attention on a few of them to the exclu- 
sion of the rest. The propensity to excessive simplifi- 
cation is indeed natural to the mind of man, since it is 
only by abstraction and generalization, which neces- 
sarily imply the neglect of a multitude of particulars, 
that he can stretch his puny faculties so as to embrace 
a minute portion of the illimitable vastness of the 
universe. But if the propensity is natural and even 
inevitable, it is nevertheless fraught with peril, since it 
is apt to narrow and falsify our conception of any 
subject under investigation. To correct it partially— 
for to correct it wholly would require an infinite 
-intelligence—we must endeavour to broaden our views 
by taking account of a wide range of facts and - 
possibilities ; and when we have done so to the utmost 
of our power, we must still remember that from the 
very nature of things our ideas fall immcasuranly 
short of the reality. 

In no branch of learning, perhaps, has this prone- 
ness to an attractive but fallacious simplicity wrought 
more havoc than in the investigation of the early 
history of mankind; in particular, the excesses to 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 332-334. 


58 THE STUDY OF MAN 


which it has been carried have done much to discredit ' 
the study of primitive mythology and _ religion. 
Students of these subjects have been far too ready to 
pounce on any theory which adequately explains 
some of the facts, and forthwith to stretch it so as to 
cover them all; and when the theory, thus unduly 
strained, has cracked and broken, as was to be 
expected, in their unskilful hands, they have pettishly 
thrown it aside in disgust instead of restricting it, as 
they should have done from the outset, to the particular 
class of facts to which it is really applicable. So it 
fared in our youth with the solar myth theory, which, 
after being unreasonably exaggerated by its friends, 
has long been quite as unreasonably rejected altogether 
by its adversaries; and in more recent times the theories 
of totemism, magic, and taboo, to take only a few 
conspicuous examples, have similarly suffered from 
the excessive zeal of injudicious advocates. ‘This 
instability of judgement, this tendency of anthropo- 
logical opinion to swing to and fro from one extreme 
to another with every breath of new discovery, ‘is 
perhaps the principal reason why the whole study is 
still viewed askance by men of sober and cautious 
temper, who naturally look with suspicion on idols 
that are set up and worshipped one day only to be 
knocked down and trampled under foot the next. To 
these cool observers Max Miiller and the rosy Dawn 
in the nineteenth century stand on the same dusty 
shelf with Jacob Bryant and Noah’s ark in the eight- 
eenth, and they expect with a sarcastic smile the time 
when the fashionable anthropological topics of the 
present day will in their turn be consigned to the same 
peaceful limbo of forgotten absurdities. It is not for 
the anthropologist himself to anticipate the verdict of 


THE PROBLEMS OF ANTHROPOLOGY 59 


posterity on his labours; still it is his humble hope 
that the facts which he has patiently amassed will 
be found sufficiently numerous and solid to bear the 
weight of some at least of the conclusions which he 
rests upon them, so that these can never again be 
lightly tossed aside as the fantastic dreams of a mere 
bookish student. At the same time, if he is wise, he 
will be forward to acknowledge and proclaim that our 
hypotheses at best are but partial, not universal, 
solutions of the manifold problems which confront us, 
and that in science as in daily life it is vain to look for 
one key to open all locks. 


XXXII 
THE PROBLEMS OF ANTHROPOLOGY !? 


Such are, in the barest outline, a few of the 
problems with which mental or social anthropology is 
called upon to deal, and which she must attempt to 
solve. Hitherto many of them have been the favourite 
themes of sophists and ranters, of demagogues and 
dreamers, who by their visions of a Golden Age of 
universal equality and universal wealth in the future, 
modelled on the baseless fancy of a like Golden Age 
in the past, have too often lured the ignorant multitude 
to the edge of the precipice and pushed them over the 
brink. Hereafter it will be for anthropology to treat 
the same themes in a different spirit and by a different 
method. If she is true to her principles, she will not 
seek to solve, or to gloze over, the problems by rhetoric 
and declamation, by cheap appeals to popular senti- 


1 “The Scope and Method of Mental Anthropology,” Sctence Progress, 
No. 64, April 1922, p. 594. 


Ries eo 8 tl 


60 THE STUDY OF MAN 


ment and prejudice, by truckling to the passions and 
the cupidity of the mob. She will seek to solve them 
by the patient accumulation and the exact investi- 
gation of facts, by that and by nothing else, for only 
thus can she hope to arrive at the truth, 


XXXIII 
THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY! 


Qu’on songe a la grande, l’immense foule de 
docteurs qui, depuis le moyen Age, ont fait retentir de 
leur voix les salles de la Sorbonne ! , 

Quelle diversité de doctrines ils ont enseignée ! 
Quelle variété de préceptes ils ont inculquée a leurs 
éléves ! Que de discours subtils, que de déclamations 
passionnées sur des théses qui, aux orateurs, semblaient 
étre vérités des plus certaines et des plus importantes, 
mais qui, a nous autres de cette génération, paraissent 
soit banales, soit fausses et méme absurdes! Et nous 
qui leur avons succédé et qui occupons leurs siéges 
pendant quelques heures si bréves, nous nous flattons 
d’avoir atteint quelques vérités qui ont échappé a nos 
prédécesseurs, et nous préchons ces soi-disant vérités 
avec la méme bonne foi, avec la méme conviction et la 
‘méme ardeur qu’eux! Hélas! Messieurs, ne nous 
trompons pas 1a-dessus. Ce qui a nous, hommes de 
la présente génération, parait étre la vraie vérité ne 
l’est pas, pas plus que celle qui aux yeux de nos 
devanciers offrait la méme apparence trompeuse. 
Par une nécessité fatale l’homme poursuit toujours la 
vérité, mais jamais il ne l’atteint. Dans cette pour- 


1 The Gorgon’s Head and other Literary Pieces, “ Sur l’Etude des Origines 
humaines,” pp. 337-339- 


THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY 61 


suite ce qu'il attrape, ce qu’1l saisit, n’est qu’une ombre, 
un fantOme, une image; la vraie vérité lui échappe 
et lui échappera 4 jamais. La poursuite est sans 
fin, le but s’éloigne 4 mesure que nous avancons, 
comme l’arc-en-ciel qui fuit devant nous et se rit de 
nos faibles efforts pour le saisir. Contemplant cette 
poursuite toujours renouvelée et toujours vaine, nous 
sommes tentés de nous écrier avec le sage: Vanitas 
vanitatum, omnia°vanitas / 

Néanmoins pour ma part je ne crois pas que dans 
cette conclusion décourageante le sage ait eu tout a 
fait raison. I] me semble que si nous n’atteignons 
jamais la vérité elle-méme, chaque génération arrive 
a la serrer d’un peu plus pres. C’est-a-dire que nous 
ne tournons pas toujours dans un cercle identique: 
histoire de l’humanité n’est pas un triste cycle 
d’illusions et de désillusions alternatives: ce n’est 
pas une oscillation éternelle entre la foi et le scepti- 
cisme, entre l’espoir et le désespoir. Non, il y a un 
progres lent mais perceptible, qui nous emporte d’un 
commencement inconnu vers un but également in- 
connu: l’humanité est, pour ainsi dire, accrochée aux 
marches d’un grand escalier qui monte depuis des 
abimes sombres jusqu’aux hauteurs de plus en plus 
illuminées d’un jour radieux et céleste. [I ne nous est 
pas donné, a nous, fréles créatures éphémeres, ni de 
sonder ces abimes effroyables ni de jeter nos regards 
vers ces cimes vertigineuses : il nous suffit d’entrevoir 
celles des marches de ce grand escalier qui sont les 
plus rapprochées de nous, et de constater que le 
mouvement général de |’humanité va en montant 
l’escalier et non pas en le descendant. 

C’est l’idée de ce progrés de l’humanité qui a 
occupé ma pensée et dirigé mes études. 


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XXXIV 


THE DISCOVERY OF TOTEMISM 
AND EXOGAMY} 


THE man who more than any other deserves to 
rank as the discoverer of totemism and exogamy was 
the Scotchman John Ferguson McLennan.2 It was 
not that he was the first to notice the mere existence 
of the institutions in various races nor even that he 
added very much to our knowledge of them. But 
with the intuition of genius he perceived or divined 
the far-reaching influence which in different ways the 
two institutions have exercised on the history of society. 
The great service which he rendered to science was 
that he put the right questions; it was not that hé 
answered them aright. He did indeed attempt, with 
some confidence, to explain the origin of exogamy, 
but his explanation is probably erroneous. On the 
origin of totemism he did not even speculate, or, if he 
did, he never published his speculations. To the last 
he appears to have regarded that problem as unsolved, 
if not insoluble. | 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol.i., species of animals or plants. Exogamy 
Preface, pp. vii-viii. (‘‘ marrying out ’’) is the rule which 

2 Totemism is the intimate and forbids a man to marry a woman of 
friendly relation in which the members _ the group, whether kinship or local, to 
of a kinship group believe themselves which he himself belongs. These 
to stand to a particular kind of natural rough preliminary definitions will be 
or (rarely) artificial objects, usually a _ elucidated in what follows. 


65 F 


66 MAN IN SOCIETY 


While McLennan’s discovery of exogamy attracted 
attention and excited discussion, his discovery of 
totemism made comparatively little stir, and outside 
of a small circle of experts it passed almost unnoticed 
in the general world of educated opinion. The very 
few writers who touched on the subject contributed 
little to its elucidation. For the most part they con- 
tented themselves with repeating a few familiar facts 
or adding a few fresh theories; they did not attempt 


a wide induction on the basis of a systematic collection ~ 


and classification of the evidence. Accordingly, when 
in the year 1886 my revered friend William Robertson 
Smith, a disciple of McLennan’s, invited me to write 
the article on totemism for the Ninth Edition of the 
Encyclopedia Britannica, which was then in course 
of publication under his editorship, I had to do nearly 
the whole work of collection and classification for 
myself with very little help from my predecessors. 


XXXV 


DIFFERENT POSSIBLE ORIGINS OF TOTEMISM 
AND EXOGAMY 1! 


At the outset we shall do well to bear in mind 
that both totemism and exogamy may possibly have 


originated in very different ways among different 


peoples, and that the external resemblances between 
the institutions in different places may accordingly be 
deceptive. Instances of such deception might easily 
be multiplied in other fields of science. Nothing 
can externally resemble the leaves or branches of 
certain trees more exactly than certain insects; yet 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 42-43. 


THE HISTORY OF TOTEMISM 67 


the things which bear such an extraordinary resem- 
blance to each other are not even different species of 
the same genus; they belong to totally different natural 
orders, for the one is an animal and the other is a plant. 
So it may possibly be both with totemism and with 
exogamy. What we call totemism or exogamy in one 
people may perhaps be quite different in its origin 
and nature from totemism and exogamy in another 
people. This is possible. Yet on the other hand the 
resemblances between all systems of totemism and all 
systems of exogamy are so great and so numerous 
that the presumption is certainly in favour of the view 
that each of them has everywhere originated in sub- 
stantially the same way, and that therefore a theory 
which satisfactorily explains the origin of these in- 
stitutions in any one race will probably explain its 
origin in all races. The burden of proof therefore 
lies on those who contend that there are many different 
kinds of totemism and exogamy rather than on those 
who hold that there is substantially only one of each. 
In point of fact most writers who have set themselves 
to explain the rise of the two institutions appear to 
have assumed, and in my judgement rightly assumed, 
that the solution of each problem is singular. 


XXXVI 
THE HISTORY OF TOTEMISM ? 


The history of totemism is unknown. Our earliest 
notices of it date only from the seventeenth century 
and consist of a few scanty references in the reports 
written from North America by Jesuit missionaries 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 16-17. 


68 MAN IN SOCIETY 


among the Indians. The eighteenth century added 
but little to our information on the subject. It was 
not until the great scientific Renaissance of the nine- 
teenth century that men awoke to the need of studying 
savagery, and among the additions which the new 
study made to knowledge not the least important were 
the discoveries of totemism, exogamy, and the classi- 
ficatory system of relationship. The discoveries of 
totemism and exogamy were the work above all 
of the Scotchman J. F. McLennan; the discovery of 
the classificatory system of relationship was due to 
the American L. H. Morgan alone. Unfortunately 
neither of these great students appreciated the work 
of the other, and they engaged in bitter and barren 
controversy over it. We who profit by their genius 
and labours can now see how the work of each fits 
into and supplements that of the other. The history 
of the classificatory system, like that of totemism, is 
quite unknown ; civilized men seem to have had no 
inkling of its existence till the nineteenth century. 
Yet we cannot doubt that despite the shortness of their 
historical record both totemism and the classificatory 
system of relationship are exceedingly ancient. Of 
the two it is probable that totemism is much the 
older. For the classificatory system, as we shall see 
presently, is founded on exogamy, and there are 
good grounds for thinking that exogamy is later than 
totemism. 

A strong argument in favour of the antiquity both 
of totemism and of the classificatory system is their 
occurrence among some of the most savage and least 
progressive races of men; for as these rude tribes 
cannot have borrowed the institutions from more 
civilized peoples, we are obliged to conclude that they 


THE HISTORY OF TOTEMISM 69 


evolved them at a level of culture even lower than that 
at which we find them. Yet it would doubtless be a 
mistake to imagine that even totemism is a product 
of absolutely primitive man. As I have pointed out 
elsewhere, all existing savages are probably far indeed 
removed from the condition in which our remote 
ancestors were when they ceased to be bestial and 
began to be human. The embryonic age of humanity 
lies many thousands, perhaps millions, of years behind 
us, and no means of research at present known to us 
hold out the least prospect that we shall ever be able 
to fill up this enormous gap in the historical record. 
It is, therefore, only in a relative sense, by comparison 
with civilized men, that we may legitimately describe 
any living race of savages as primitive. If we could 
compare these primitive savages with their oldest 
human ancestors we should find no doubt that in the: 
interval the progress of intelligence, morality, and the 
arts of life has been prodigious; indeed, in all these 
respects the chasm which divides the modern from the 
ancient savage may very well be much deeper and 
wider than that which divides the lowest modern 
savage from a Shakespeare or a Newton. Hence, 
even if we could carry ourselves back in time to the 
very beginnings of totemism, there is no reason to 
suppose that we should find its authors to be truly 
primaeval men. The cradle of totemism was not, so 
far as we can conjecture, the cradle of humanity. 


7O MAN IN SOCIETY 


XXXVII 
TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY IN HISTORY? 


In estimating the part played by totemism in his- 
tory I have throughout essayed, wherever the occasion 
offered, to reduce within reasonable limits the extra- 
vagant pretensions which have sometimes been put 
forward on behalf of the institution, as if it had been 
a factor of primary importance in the religious and 
economic development of mankind. As a matter of 
fact the influence which it is supposed to have exercised 
on economic progress appears to be little more than 
a shadowy conjecture; and though its influence on 
religion has been real, it has been greatly exaggerated. 
By comparison with some other factors, such as the 
worship of nature and the worship of the dead, the 
importance of totemism in religious evolution is 
altogether subordinate. Its main interest for us 
lies in the glimpse which it affords into the working 
of the childlike mind of the savage; it is as it were 
a window opened up into a distant past. 

Exogamy is also a product of savagery, but it 
has few or none of the quaint superstitions which lend 
a certain picturesque charm to totemism. It is, so 
to say, a stern Puritanical institution. In its rigid 
logic, its complex rules, its elaborate terminology, 
its labyrinthine systems of relationship, it presents — 
an aspect somewhat hard and repellent, a formality 
almost mathematical in its precision, which the most 
consummate literary art could hardly mollify or 
embellish. Yet its interest for the student of history - 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i., Preface, pp. xiii-xiv. 


TOTEMISM DEFINED a1 


is much deeper: than that of its gayer and more 
frivolous sister. For whereas totemism, if it ever 
existed among the ancestors of the civilized races, 
has vanished without leaving a trace among their 
descendants, exogamy has bequeathed to civilization 
the momentous legacy of the prohibited degrees of 
marriage. 


XXXVITI 
TOTEMISM DEFINED? 


No one who has followed the preceding survey ? 
attentively can fail to be struck by the general simi- 
larity of the beliefs and customs which it has revealed 
in tribe after tribe of men belonging to different races 
and speaking different languages in many widely 
distant parts of the world. Differences, sometimes 
considerable differences, of detail do certainly occur, 
but on the whole the resemblances decidedly pre- 
ponderate, and are so many and so close that they 
deserve to be classed together under a common name. 
The name which students of the subject have bestowed 
on these beliefs and customs is totemism, a word 
borrowed from the language of one of the tribes 
which practise the institution; and while the intro- 
duction of new words from barbarous languages is 
in general to be deprecated, there is some excuse for 
designating by a barbarous name a barbarous in- 
stitution to which the institutions of civilized nations 
offer no analogy. If now, reviewing all the facts, 
we attempt to frame a general definition of totemism, 
we may perhaps say that totemism is an intimate 


1 Totemism and Exogamy,vol.iv. in the first three volumes of Zotemism 
and Exogamy but omitted in the 


4s, 
* This refers to the facts-collected present volume. 


72 MAN IN SOCIETY 


relation which is supposed to exist between a group of 
kindred people on the one side and a species of natural 
or artificial objects on the other side, which objects 
are called the totems of the human group. To this 
general definition, which probably applies to all 
purely totemic peoples, it should be added that the 
species of things which constitutes a totem is far 
oftener natural than artificial, and that amongst the 
natural species which are reckoned totems the great 
majority are either animals or plants. 

To define exactly the relation in which totemic 
people stand to their totems is hardly possible; for 
exact definitions imply exact thoughts, and the 
thoughts of savages in the totemic stage are essentially 
vague, confused, and contradictory. As soon, there- 
fore, as we attempt to give a precise and detailed 
account of totemism we almost inevitably fall into 
contradictions, since what we may say of the totemic 
system of one tribe may not apply without serious 
modifications and restrictions to the totemic system 
of another. We must constantly bear in mind that 
totemism is not a consistent philosophical system, 
the product of exact knowledge and high intelligence, 
rigorous in its definitions and logical in its deductions 
from them. On the contrary it is a crude super- 
stition, the offspring of undeveloped minds, indefinite, 
illogical, inconsistent. Remembering this, and re- 
nouncing any attempt to give logical precision to a 
subject which does not admit of it, we may say that 
on the whole the relation in which a man stands to 
his totem appears to be one of friendship and kinship. 
He regards the animals or plants or whatever the 
totems may be as his friends and relations, his fathers, 
his brothers, and so forth. He puts them as far as 


TOTEMISM DEFINED 73 


he can on a footing of equality with himself and with 
his fellows, the members of the same totemic clan. 
He considers them as essentially his peers, as beings 
of the same sort as himself and his human kinsmen. 
In short, so far as it is possible to do so, he identifies 
himself and his fellow-clansmen with his totem. 
Accordingly, if the totem is a species of animals he 
looks upon himself and his fellows as animals of the 
same species; and on the other hand he regards the 
animals as in a sense human. Speaking of the 
Central Australian tribes Messrs. Spencer and Gillen 
observe: ‘‘ The totem of any man is regarded, just 
as it is elsewhere, as the same thing as himself; as 
a native once said to us when we were discussing the 
matter with him, “that one’, pointing to his photo- 
graph which we had taken, ‘is just the same as me; 
so is a kangaroo’ (his totem).” In these brief 
sentences the whole essence of totemism is summed 
up: totemism is an identification of a man with his 
totem, whether his totem be an animal, a Plast or 
what not. 

Thus it is a serious, though eaparen dls a common, 
mistake to speak of a totem as a god and to say that 
it is worshipped by the clan. In pure totemism, 
such as we find it among the Australian aborigines, 
the totem is never a god and is never worshipped. 
A man no more worships his totem and regards it as 
his god than he worships his father and mother, his 
brother and his sister, and regards them as his gods. 
He certainly respects his totem and treats it with 
consideration, but the respect and _ consideration 
which he pays to it are the same that he pays to his 
friends and relations; hence when a totem is an 
edible animal or plant, he commonly, but not always, 


aia ag 


74 MAN IN SOCIETY 


abstains from killing and eating it, just as he com- 
monly, but not always, abstains from killing and 
eating his friends and relations. But to call this 
decent respect for his equals the worship of a god is 
entirely to misapprehend and misrepresent the essence 
of totemism. If religion implies, as it seems. to do, 
an acknowledgement on the part of the worshipper 
that the object of his worship is superior to himself, 
then pure totemism cannot properly be called a 
religion at all, since a man looks upon his totem as 
his equal and friend, not at all as his superior, still 
less as his god. The system is thoroughly democratic ; 
it is simply an imaginary brotherhood established on 
a footing of perfect equality between a group of 
people on the one side and a group of things (generally 
a-species of animals or plants) on the other side. No 
doubt it may under favourable circumstances develop 
into a worship of animals or plants, of the sun or the 
moon, of the sea or the rivers, or whatever the par- 
ticular totem may have been; but such worship is 
never found among the lowest savages, who have 
totemism in its purest form; it occurs only among 
peoples who have made a considerable advance in 
culture, and accordingly we are justified in considering 
it as a later phase of religious evolution, as a product 
of the disruption and decay of totemism proper. 


XXXIX 
THE DIFFUSION OF TOTEMISM ! 


If we exclude hypotheses and confine ourselves to 
facts, we may say broadly that totemism is practised 


 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 14-16. 


THE DIFFUSION OF TOTEMISM 75 


by many savage and barbarous peoples, the lower | 
races as we call them, who occupy the continents 
and islands of the tropics and the Southern Hemi- 
sphere, together with a large part of North America, 
and whose complexion shades off from coal black 
through dark brown to red. With the doubtful 
exception of a few Mongoloid tribes in Assam, no 
yellow and no white race is totemic. Thus if civiliza- 
tion varies on the whole, as it seems to do, directly 
with complexion, increasing or diminishing with the 
blanching or darkening of the skin, we may lay it 
down as a general proposition that totemism is an 
institution peculiar to the dark-complexioned and 
least civilized races of mankind who are spread over 
the tropics and the Southern Hemisphere, but have 
also overflowed into North America. 

The question naturally suggests itself, how has 
totemism been diffused through so large a part of the 
human race and over so vast an area of the world? 
Two answers at least are possible. On the one hand, 
it may have originated in a single centre and spread 
thence either through peaceful intercourse between 
neighbouring peoples or through the migrations and 
conquests of the people with whom the institution 
took its rise. Or, on the other hand, it may have 
sprung up independently in many different tribes 
as a product of certain general laws of intellectual 
and social development common to all races of men 
who are descended from the same stock. However, 
these two solutions of the problem are not mutually 
exclusive; for totemism may have arisen independ- 
ently in a number of tribes and have spread from them 
to others. There is some indication of such a diffusion 
of totemism from tribe to tribe on the North-West 


76 MAN IN SOCIETY 


coast of America. But a glance at a totemic map 
of the world may convince us of the difficulty of 
accounting for the spread of totemism on the theory 
of a single origin. Such a theory might have been 
plausible enough if the totemic peoples had been con- 
gregated together in the huge compact mass of land 
which under the names of Europe, Asia, and Africa 
makes up the greater part of the habitable globe. 
But on the contrary the tribes which practise totemism 
are scattered far apart from each other over that 
portion of the world in which the ocean greatly 
predominates in area over the land. Seas which to 
the savage might well seem boundless and impassable 
roll between the totemic peoples of Australia, India, 
Africa, and America. What communication was 
possible, for instance, between the savage aborigines 
of Southern India and the savage aborigines of 
North-Eastern America, between the Dravidians and 
the Iroquois? or again between the tribes of New 
South Wales and the tribes of Southern Africa, 
between the Kamilaroi and the Herero? So far as 
the systems of totemism and kinship among these 
widely sundered peoples agree with each other, it 
seems easier to explain their agreement, on the theory 
of independent origin, as the result of similar minds 
acting alike to meet the pressure of similar needs. 
And the immense seas which divide the totemic 
tribes from each other may suggest a reason why 
savagery in general and totemism in particular have 
lingered so long in this portion of the world. The 
physical barriers which divide mankind, by pre- 
venting the free interchange of ideas, are so many 
impediments to intellectual and moral progress, so 
many clogs on the advance of civilization. We need 


THE INDUSTRIAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 77 


not wonder, therefore, that savagery has kept its seat 
longest in the Southern Hemisphere and in the New 
World, which may be called the Oceanic regions of 
the globe; while on the contrary civilization had its 
earliest homes in the great continental area of Europe, - 
Asia, and North Africa, where primitive men, as yet 
unable to battle with the ocean, could communicate 
freely with each other by land. 


XL 
THE INDUSTRIAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 3 


The general explanation of totemism to which the 
magical ceremonies called /ztzchtwma* seem to point 
is that it is primarily an organized and co-operative 
system of magic designed to secure for the members of 
the community, on the one hand, a plentiful supply of 
all the commodities of which they stand in need, and, 
on the other hand, immunity from all the perils and 
dangers to which man is exposed in his struggle with 
nature. Each totem group, on this theory, was 
charged with the superintendence and control of some 
department of nature from which it took its name, 
and with which it sought, as far as possible, to identify 
itself. If the things which composed the department 
assigned to a particular group were beneficial to man, 
as in the case of edible animals and plants, it was the 
duty of the group to foster and multiply them; if, 
on the other hand, they were either noxious by nature 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol.i. mostly edible animals or plants. Each 
pp. 116-118. clan undertakes to multiply its totem 

2 The magical ceremonies called for the benefit of all the other members 
Intichiuma are observed by the natives of the community, who eat of it, 
of Central Australia for the multi- though the members of the particular 
plication of their totems, which are clan whose totem it is do not. 


78 MAN IN SOCIETY 


or might, under certain circumstances, become so, as 
in the case of ravenous beasts, poisonous serpents, 
rain, wind, snow, and so on, then it was the duty of 
the group to repress and counteract these harmful 
tendencies, to remedy any mischief they might have 
wrought, and perhaps to turn them as efficient engines 
of destruction against foes. This latter side of totemic 
magic, which may perhaps be described as the nega- 
tive or remedial side, hardly appears in our accounts 
of Central Australian totemism; but we shall meet 
with examples of it elsewhere. | 

In favour of this hypothetical explanation of 
totemism I would urge that it is simple and natural, 
and in entire conformity with both the practical needs 
and the modes of thought of savage man. Nothing 
can be more natural than that man should wish to eat 
when he is hungry, to drink when he is thirsty, to 
have fire to warm him when he is cold, and fresh 
breezes to cool him when he is hot ; and to the savage 
nothing seems simpler than to procure for himself 
these and all other necessaries and comforts by magic 
art. We need not, therefore, wonder that in very 
ancient times communities of men should have 
organized themselves more or less deliberately for the 
purpose of attaining objects so natural by means that 
seemed to them so simple and easy. The first neces- 
sity of savage, as of civilized, man is food, and with 
this it accords that wherever totemism exists the 
majority of the totems are invariably animals or 
plants—in other words, things which men can eat. 
The great significance of this fact has hitherto been 
concealed from us by the prohibition so commonly 
laid on members of a totem clan to eat their totem 
animal or plant. But the discovery of the /ztzchiuma 


THE INDUSTRIAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 79 


ceremonies among the Central Australian tribes 
proves that in keeping our eye on the prohibition to © 
eat the totem we have hitherto been looking at only 
one side of the medal, and that the less important of 
the two. For these ceremonies show—what no one 
had previously dreamed of—that the very man who 
himself abstains in general from eating his totem will, 
nevertheless, do all in his power to enable other people 
to eat it; nay, that his very business and function in 
life is to procure for his fellow-tribesmen a supply of 
the animal or plant from which he takes his name, and 
to which he stands in so intimate a relation. With 
the new facts before us, we may safely conjecture that 
whatever the origin of the prohibition observed by 
each clan to eat its totem, that prohibition is essen- 
tially subordinate, and probably ancillary, to the great 
end of enabling the community as a whole to eat of it 
—in other words, of contributing to the common food 
supply. 

Viewed in this light, totemism is a thoroughly 
practical system designed to meet the everyday wants 
of the ordinary man in a clear and straightforward 
way. There is nothing vague or mystical about it, 
nothing of that metaphysical haze which some writers 
love to conjure up over the humble beginnings of human 
speculation, but which is utterly foreign to the simple, 
sensuous, and concrete modes of thought of the savage. 
Yet for all its simplicity and directness we cannot but 
feel that there is something impressive, and almost 
grandiose, in the comprehensiveness, the completeness, 
the vaulting ambition of this scheme, the creation of 
a crude and barbarous philosophy. All nature has 
been mapped out into departments: all men have 
been distributed inte corresponding groups; and to 


80 MAN IN SOCIETY 


each group of men has been assigned, with astounding 
audacity, the duty of controlling some one depart- 
ment of nature for the common good. Religion, it will 
be observed, has no place in the scheme. Man is still 
alone with nature, and fancies he can sway it at his 
will. Later on, when he discovers his mistake, he 
will bethink himself of gods, and beg them to pull for 
him the strings that hang beyond his reach. 


XLI 
THE CONCEPTIONAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM ! 


After long reflection it occurred to me that the 
simple idea, the primitive superstition at the root of 
totemism, may perhaps be found in the mode by which 
the Central Australian aborigines still determine the 
totems of every man, woman, and. child of the tribe. 
That mode rests on a primitive theory of conception. 
Ignorant of the true causes of childbirth, they imagine 
that a child only enters into a woman at the moment 
when she first feels it stirring in her womb, and accord- 
ingly they have to explain to themselves why it should 
enter her body at that particular moment. Necessarily 
it has come from outside and therefore from some- 
thing which the woman herself may have seen or felt 
immediately before she knew herself to be with child. 
The theory of the Central Australians is that a spirit 
child has made its way into her from the nearest 
of those trees, rocks, water-pools, or other natural 
features at which the spirits of the dead are waiting to 
be born again ; and since only the spirits of people of 
one particular totem are believed to congregate at any 


+ Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 57-64: 


THE CONCEPTIONAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 81 


one spot, and the natives well know what totemic 
spirits haunt each hallowed plot of ground, a woman 
has no difficulty in determining the totem of her un- 
born child. If the child entered her, that is, if she 
felt her womb quickened, near a tree haunted by 
spirits of Kangaroo people, then her child will be of 
the kangaroo totem ; if she felt the first premonitions 
of maternity near a rock tenanted by spirits of Emu 
people, then her child will be of the emu totem; and 
so on throughout the whole length of the totemic 
gamut. This is not a matter of speculation. It is 
the belief held universally by all the tribes of Central 
and Northern Australia, so far as these beliefs are 
known to us. 

Obviously, however, this theory of conception does 
not by itself explain totemism, that is, the relation 
in which groups of people stand to species of things. 
It stops short of doing so by a single-step. What a 
woman imagines to enter her body at conception is 
not an animal, a plant, a stone, or what not ; it is only 
the spirit of a human child which has an animal, a 
plant, a stone, or what not for its totem. Had the 
woman supposed that what passed into her at the 
critical moment was an animal, a plant, a stone, or 
what not, and that when her child was born it would 
be that animal, plant, or stone, in human form, then 
we should have a complete explanation of totemism. 
For the essence of totemism, as I have repeatedly 
pointed out, consists in the identification of a man 
with a thing, whether an animal, a plant, or what not ; 
and that identification would be complete if a man 
believed himself to be the very thing, whether animal, 
plant, or what not, which had entered his mother’s 


womb at conception and had issued from it at child- 
G 


82 MAN IN SOCIETY 


birth. Accordingly I conjectured that the Central 
Australian beliefs as to conception are but one remove 
from absolutely primitive totemism, which, on my 
theory, ought to consist in nothing more or less than 
in a belief that women are impregnated without the 
help of men by something which enters their womb 
at the moment when they first feel it quickened ; for 
such a betief would perfectly explain the essence of 
totemism, that is, the identification of groups of 
people with groups of things. Thus, if I was right, 
the clue to totemism was found just where we might 
most reasonably expect to find it, namely, in the 
beliefs and customs of the most primitive totemic_ 
people known to us, the Australian aborigines. In 
fact the clue had been staring us in the face for years, 
though we did not recognize it. 

But a link in the chain of evidence was wanting ; 
for, as I have just pointed out, the Australian beliefs 
cannot be regarded as absolutely primitive. Three 
years after I propounded my theory, the missing link 
was found, the broken chain was completed, by the 
researches of Dr. W. H. R. Rivers; for in the Banks’ 
Islands he discovered a series of beliefs and customs 
which fulfil exactly my theoretical definition of 
absolutely primitive totemism. The facts have already 
been fully laid before the reader!; here I need only 
briefly recapitulate them. In some of these islands 
many of the people identify themselves with certain 
animals or fruits and believe that they themselves 
partake of the qualities and character of these animals 
or fruits. Consistently with this belief they refuse 
to eat animals or fruits of these sorts, on the ground 
that to do so would be a kind of cannibalism; they 


1 In Zotemism and Exogamy, vol. ii. pp. 89 sgq. 


THE CONCEPTIONAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 83 


would in a manner be eating themselves. The 
reason they give for holding this belief and observing 
this conduct is that their mothers were impregnated 
by the entrance into their wombs of spirit animals 
or spirit fruits, and that they themselves are nothing 
but the particular animal or plant which effected a 
lodgement in their mother and in due time was born 
into the world with a superficial and deceptive re- 
semblance to a human being. That is why they 
partake of the character of the animal or plant; that | 
is why they refuse to eat animals or plants of that 
species. This is not called totemism, but neverthe- 
less it appears to be totemism in all its pristine sim- 
plicity. Theoretically it is an explanation of child- 
birth resting on a belief that conception can take 
place without cohabitation ; practically it is respect 
paid to species of animals, plants, or other natural 
objects, on the ground of their assumed identity with 
human beings. The practice has long been known 
as totemism ; the theory which explains the practice 
has now been disclosed by the discoveries of Messrs. 
Spencer and Gillen in Central Australia and of 
Dr. W. H. R. Rivers in the Banks’ Islands. 

Here at last we seem to find a complete and 
adequate explanation of the origin of totemism. The 
conceptional theory, as I have called my third and 
so far.as I can see my final theory of totemism, 
accounts for all the facts in a simple and natural 
manner. It explains why people commonly abstain 
from killing and eating their totemic animals and 
plants or otherwise injuring their totems. The reason 
is that, identifying themselves with their totems, they 
are naturally careful not to hurt or destroy them. 
It explains why some people on the other hand 


84 MAN IN SOCIETY 


consider themselves bound occasionally to eat a portion 
of the totemic animal or plant. The reason again 
is that, identifying themselves with their totem, they 
desire to maintain and strengthen that identity by 
assimilating from time to time its flesh and blood or 
vegetable tissues. It explains why people are often 
supposed to partake of the qualities and character of 
their totems. The reason again is that, identifying 
themselves with their totems, they necessarily partake 
of the totemic qualities and character. It explains 
why men often claim to exercise a magical control 
over their totems, in particular a power of multiplying 
them. The reason again is that, identifying them- 
selves with their totems, they naturally suppose 
themselves invested with the like powers for the 
multiplication or control of the species. It explains 
why people commonly believe themselves to be 
descended from their totemic animals and plants, and 
why women are sometimes said to have given birth 
to these animals or plants. The reason is that these 
animals or plants or their spirits are supposed to have 
actually entered into the mothers of the clan and 
to have been born from them in human form. It 
explains the whole of the immense range of totems 
from animals and plants upwards or downwards to 
the greatest works of nature on the one side and to 
the meanest handiwork of man on the other. The 
reason is that there is nothing from the light of the 
sun or the moon or the stars down to the humblest 
implement of domestic utility which may not have 
impressed a woman’s fancy at the critical season 
and have been by her identified with the child in 
her womb. Lastly, it explains why totemic peoples 
often confuse their ancestors with their totems. The 


THE CONCEPTIONAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 85 


reason is that, regarding their ancestors as animals 
or plants in essence, though human in form, they 
find it hard to distinguish even in thought between 
their outward human appearance and their inward 
bestial or vegetable nature; they think of them 
vaguely both as men and as animals or plants; the 
contradiction between the two things does not perplex 
them, though they cannot picture it clearly to their 
minds. Haziness is characteristic of the mental vision 
of the savage. Like the blind man of Bethsaida he 
sees men like trees and animals walking in a thick 
intellectual fog. Thus in the conceptional theory we 
seem to find a sufficient explanation of all the facts 
and fancies of totemism. 

We conclude, then, that the ultimate source of 
totemism is a savage ignorance of the physical process 
by which men and animals reproduce their kinds ; 
in particular it is an ignorance of the part played by 
the male in the generation of offspring. Surprising 
as such ignorance may seem to the civilized mind, a 
little reflection will probably convince us that, if 
mankind has indeed been evolved from lower forms 
of animal life, there must have been a period in the 
history of our race when ignorance of paternity was 
universalamong men. The part played by the mother 
in the production of offspring is obvious to the senses 
and cannot but be perceived even by the animals ; 
but the part played by the father is far less obvious 
and is indeed a matter of inference only, not of per- 
ception. How could the infantine intelligence of 
the primitive savage perceive that the child which 
comes forth from the womb is the fruit of the seed 
which was sowed there nine long months before? 
He is ignorant; as we know from the example of the 


pee a Bai iti 
2 2 


86 MAN IN SOCIETY 


Australian aborigines, of the simple truth that a seed 
sowed in the earth will spring up and bear fruit. 
How then could he infer that children are the result 
of a similar process? His ignorance is therefore a 
natural and necessary phase in the intellectual develop- 
ment of our race. But while he could not for long 
ages divine the truth as to the way in which children 
come into the world, it was inevitable that so soon 
as he began to think at all he should turn his thoughts 
to this most important and most mysterious event, 
so constantly repeated before his eyes, so essential 
to the continuance of the species. If he formed a 
theory about anything it would naturally be about 
this. And what theory could seem to him more 
obviously suggested by the facts than that the child 
only enters into the mother’s womb at the moment 
when she first feels it stirring within her? How 
could he think that the child was there long before 
she felt it? From the standpoint of his ignorance 
such a supposition might well appear unreasonable 
and absurd. And if the child enters the woman only 
at the first quickening of her womb, what more 
natural than to identify it with something that 
simultaneously struck her fancy and perhaps mysteri- 
ously vanished ? It might be a kangaroo that, hopped 
before her and disappeared in a thicket; it might 
. be a gay butterfly that flickered past in the sunshine 
with the metallic brilliancy of its glittering wings, 
or a gorgeous parrot flapping by resplendent in soft 
plumage of purple, crimson, and orange. It might 
be the sunbeams streaming down on her through an 
opening in a forest glade, or the moonbeams sparkling 
and dancing on the water, till a driving cloud suddenly 
blotted out the silvery orb. It might be the sighing 


THE CONCEPTIONAL THEORY OF TOTEMISM 87 


of the wind in the trees, or the surf on some stormy 
shore, its hollow roar sounding in her ears like the 
voice of a spirit borne to her from across the sea. Any- 
thing indeed that struck a woman at that mysterious 
moment of her life when she first knows herself to 
be a mother might easily be identified by her with 
the child in her womb. Such maternal fancies, so 
natural and seemingly so universal, appear to be the 
root of totemism. 

Thus the present diffusion of totemism over a large 
part of the world is explained by causes which at a 
very remote time probably operated equally among 
all races of men, to wit, an ignorance of the true source 
of childbirth combined with a natural curiosity on the 
subject. We need not suppose that the institution has 
been borrowed to any great extent by one race from 
another. It may have everywhere sprung independ- 
ently from the same simple root in the mental con- 
stitution of man. But it would be a great mistake to 
imagine that the cause which originated the institution 
has survived wherever the institution itself still lingers, 
in other words, that all totemic peoples are totally 
ignorant of paternity. ‘In the history of society it 
constantly happens that a custom, once started, con- 
tinues to be practised long after the motive which 
_ originated it has been forgotten; by the mere force 
of inertia an institution goes sliding along the old well- 
worn groove though the impetus which first set it in 
motion may have died out ages ago. So it has been 
with totemism. The institution is still observed by 
many tribes who are perfectly familiar with the part 
which the father plays in the begetting of children. 
Still even among them the new knowledge has not 
always entirely dispelled the ancient ignorance. Some 


88 MAN IN SOCIETY 


of them still think that the father’s help, though usual, 
is not indispensable for the production of offspring. 
Thus the Baganda firmly believe that a woman 
may be impregnated by the purple flower of the 
banana falling on her shoulders, or by the spirits of 
suicides and misborn infants which dart into her from 
their dishonoured graves at the cross-roads. Even 
among civilized races which have long sloughed off 
totemism, if they ever had it, traces of the same 
primaeval ignorance survive in certain marriage 
customs which are still observed in England, in 
certain rites which barren women still perform in the 
hope of obtaining a mother’s joys, and in a multitude 
of popular tales, which set forth how a virgin con- 
ceived and brought forth a child without contact with 
the other sex. Ages after such stories cease to be 
told of common people they continue to be related 
with childlike faith of heroes and demigods. The 
virgin birth of these worshipful personages is now 
spoken of as supernatural, but to the truly primitive 
savage it seems perfectly natural; indeed, he knows 
of no other way in which people are born into the 
world. In short, a belief that a virgin can conceive 
and bring forth a child is one of the last lingering 
relics of primitive savagery. 


XLII 
THE SAVAGE THEORY OF CONCEPTION ? 


I have said that the form of totemism which prevails 
in the most central tribes of Australia, particularly the 
Arunta and Kaitish, is probably the most primitive 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 157-159. 


THE SAVAGE THEORY OF CONCEPTION 89 


known to exist at the present day. Perhaps we may 
go a step farther, and say that it is but one: remove 
from the original pattern, the absolutely primitive 
type of totemism. The theory on which it is based 
denies implicitly, and the natives themselves deny 
explicitly, that children are the fruit of the commerce 
of the sexes. So astounding an ignorance of natural 
causation cannot but date from a past immeasurably 
remote. Yet that ignorance, strange as it seems to 
us, may be explained easily enough from the habits 
and modes of thought of savage man. In the first 
place, the interval which elapses between the act of 
impregnation and the first symptoms of pregnancy is 
sufficient to prevent him from perceiving the con- 
nexion between the two. In the second place, the 
custom, common among savage tribes, of allowing 
unrestricted licence of intercourse between the sexes 
under puberty has familiarized him with sexual unions 
that are necessarily sterile; from which he may not 
unnaturally conclude that the intercourse of the sexes 
has nothing to do with the birth of offspring. Hence 
he is driven to account for pregnancy and childbirth 
in some other way. The theory which the Central 
Australians have adopted on the subject is one which 
commends itself to the primitive mind as simple and 
obvious. Nothing is commoner among savages all 
the world over than a belief that a person may be 
possessed by a spirit, which has entered into him, 
thereby disturbing his organism and creating an 
abnormal state of body or mind, such as sickness or 
lunacy. Now, when a woman is observed to be preg- 
nant, the savage infers, with perfect truth, that some- 
thing has entered into her. What is it? and how did 
it make its way into her womb? These are questions 


go MAN IN SOCIETY 


which he cannot but put to himself as soon as he thinks 
about the matter. For the reasons given above, it 
does not occur to him to connect the first symptoms 
of pregnancy with a sexual act, which preceded them 
by a considerable interval. He thinks that the child 
enters into the woman at the time when she first feels 
it stirring in her womb, which, of course, does not 
happen until long after the real moment of conception. 
Naturally enough, when she is first aware of the 
mysterious movement within her, the mother fancies 
that something has that very moment passed into her 
body, and it is equally natural that in her attempt to 
ascertain what the thing is she should fix upon some 
object that happened to be near her and to engage her 
attention at the critical moment. Thus if she chanced 
at the time to be watching a kangaroo, or collecting 
grass-seed for food, or bathing in water, or sitting 
under a gum-tree, she might imagine that the spirit 
of a kangaroo, of grass-seed, of water, or of a gum- 
tree had passed into her, and accordingly that, when her 
child was born, it was really a kangaroo, a grass-seed, 
water, or a gum-tree, though to the bodily eye it pre- 
sented the outward form of a human being. Amongst 
the objects on which her fancy might pitch as the 
cause of her pregnancy we may suppose that the last 
food she had eaten would often be one. If she had 
recently partaken of emu flesh or yams she might 
suppose that the emu or yam, which she had unques- 
tionably taken into her body, had, so to say, struck 
root and grown up in her. This last, as perhaps the 
most natural, might be the commonest explanation of 
pregnancy; and if that was so, we can understand 
why, among the Central Australian tribes, if not 
among totemic tribes all over the world, the great 


THE PRIMITIVE CONCEPTION OF PATERNITY gI 


majority of totems are edible oe a whether animals 
or plants. 


XLITI 
THE PRIMITIVE CONCEPTION OF PATERNITY! 


We have to bear in mind that the notion of paternity 
among these tribes of Central Australia is a totally 
different thing from what it is with us. Denying, as 
they do explicitly, that the child is begotten by the 
father, they can only regard him as the consort, and, 
in a sense, the owner of the mother, and therefore, as 
the owner of her progeny, just as a man who owns a 
cow owns also the calf she brings forth. In short, it 
seems probable that a man’s children were viewed as 
his property long before they were recognized as his 
offspring. 


XLIV 
TOTEMISM IN FAIRY TALES ? 


All stories of estrangement between a man and 
his fairy wife belong to the class of which the tales 
of the Swan Maiden and of Beauty and the Beast 
are typical examples. Finding narratives of this 
sort told by totemic peoples to explain their totemic 
taboos we may conjecture that they all sprang, directly 
or indirectly, from the cycle of ideas and customs 
which centre round the institution of totemism. In 
some of these tales the husband, in others the wife, 
is a fairy who shifts his or her shape from bestial or 
vegetable to human, and who will leave his or her 
sorrowing partner for ever to return to the beasts 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. p. 167. 
2 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. ii. pp. §70-571. 


92 . MAN IN SOCIETY 


or the plants if a particular taboo relating to his or 
her animal or vegetable nature be infringed. Such 
stories are explained naturally and simply on the 
supposition that they referred originally to husbands 
and wives who, under a system of totemism and 
exogamy, would claim kindred with animals or plants 
of different kinds, the husband assimilating himself 
to one sort of creature and the wife to another. In 
such households husband and wife would naturally 
resent any injury done to their animal kinsfolk as a 
wrong done to themselves ; and domestic jars would 
easily arise whenever one of the couple failed to 
respect the humble relations of the other. Among 
some totemic tribes the danger of these intestine 
feuds is to some extent obviated by the rule that 
husband and wife must each pay due respect to 
the totem of the other, but such mutual obligations 
appear to be rare; so far as we can judge from the 
accounts, the usual custom of totemic peoples is that 
men and women revere each their own totem, but 
are not bound to show any reverence for the totems 


of their spouses. In these circumstances husband — 


and wife are constantly liable to quarrel over their 
totems, and it would be natural enough that such 
bickerings should often result in a permanent separa- 
tion. Totemism may have embittered many lives 
and broken many hearts. A reminiscence of such 
quarrels and estrangements is apparently preserved 
in the sad story of the fairy wife or the fairy husband 
who lives happily for a time with a human spouse, 
but only in the end to be parted for ever. 


TOTEMISM AND THE ORIGIN OF AGRICULTURE 93 


XLV 


TOTEMISM AND THE ORIGIN 
OF AGRICULTURE! 


If totemism as such has not fostered economic pro- 
gress directly, it may have done so indirectly. In fact 
it might perhaps be argued that accidentally totemism 
has led the way to agriculture and the domestication 
of animals, possibly even to the use of the metals. Its 
claims to these great discoveries and inventions are 
indeed very slender, but perhaps they are not quite 
beneath notice. In regard to agriculture the magical 
ceremonies performed by the Grass-seed clan of the 
Kaitish might easily lead to a rational cultivation of 
grass. The Kaitish, like all the aborigines of Australia, 
are in their native state totally ignorant of the simple 
truth that a seed planted in the ground will grow and 
multiply. Hence it has never occurred to them to sow 
seed in order to obtain a crop. But though they do 
not adopt this rational mode of accomplishing their 
end, they have recourse to many irrational and absurd 
ceremonies for making the grass to grow and bear 
seed. Amongst other things the headman of the 
Grass-seed clan takes a quantity of grass-seed in his 
mouth and blows the seeds about in all directions. 
So far as the Grass-seed man’s mind is concerned, 
this ceremony of blowing seeds about is precisely 
on a level with the ceremony of pouring his own blood 
on stones, which a man of the kangaroo totem performs 
with great solemnity for the purpose of multiplying 
kangaroos. But in the eyes of nature and in our 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 19°20. 


OE ee peer “Sea 
po a 


94 MAN IN SOCIETY 


eyes the two ceremonies have very different values. 
We know that we may pour our blood on stones till 
we die without producing a single kangaroo from 
the stones; but we also know that if we blow seeds 
about in the air some of them are very likely to sink 
into the ground, germinate, and bear fruit after their 
kind. Even the savage might in time learn to 
perceive that, though grass certainly springs from 
the ground where the Grass-seed man blew the seed 
about, no kangaroos ever spring from the stones 
which have been fertilized with the blood of a Kangaroo 
man; and if this simple truth had once firmly impressed 
itself on a blank page of his mind, the Grass-seed 
man might continue to scatter grass-seed with very 
good effect long after the Kangaroo man had ceased 
to bedabble rocks with his gore in the vain expectation 
of producing a crop of kangaroos. Thus with the 
advance of knowledge the magic of the Grass-seed 
man would rise in public esteem, while that of the 
Kangaroo man would fall into disrepute. From such 
humble beginnings a rational system of agriculture 
might in the course of ages be developed. 

On the other hand, it is possible that people who 
have animals for their totems may sometimes acci- 
dentally resort to more effective modes of multiplying 
them than pouring blood on stones. They may in 
fact capture and tame the animals and breed them 
in captivity. Totemism may thus have led to the 
domestication of cattle. 


WOMAN’S PART IN THE ORIGIN OF AGRICULTURE 95 


XLVI 


WOMAN’S PART IN THE ORIGIN 
OF AGRICULTURE}? 


In the customs observed by savages who are 
totally ignorant of agriculture we may perhaps detect 
some of the steps by which mankind have advanced 
from the enjoyment of the wild fruits of the earth to 
the systematic cultivation of plants. For an effect of 
digging up the earth in the search for roots, which is 
chiefly the work of women, has probably been in many 
cases to enrich and fertilize the soil and so to increase 
the crop of roots or herbs ; and such an increase would 
naturally attract the natives in larger numbers and 
enable them to subsist for longer periods on the spot 
without being compelled by the speedy exhaustion of 
the crop to shift their quarters and wander away in 
search of fresh supplies. Moreover, the winnowing of 
the seeds by women on ground which they had already 
turned up by their digging-sticks would naturally 
contribute to the same result. For though savages 
at the level of the Californian Indians and the 
aborigines of Australia have no idea of using seeds 
for any purpose but that of immediate consumption, 
and it has never occurred to them to incur a temporary 
loss for the sake of a future gain by sowing them in 
the ground, yet it is almost certain that in the process 
of winnowing the seeds as a preparation for eating 
them many of the grains must have escaped and, 
being wafted by the wind, have fallen on the up- 
turned soil and borne fruit. Thus by the operations 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. The Spirits of the Corn, vol. i. pp. 128-129. 


96 MAN IN SOCIETY 


of turning up the ground and winnowing the seed, 
though neither operation aimed at anything beyond 
satisfying the immediate pangs of hunger, savage 
man or rather savage woman was unconsciously 
preparing for the whole community a future and more 
abundant store of food, which would enable them to 
multiply and to abandon the old migratory and 
wasteful manner of life for a more settled and eco- 
nomic mode of existence. So curiously sometimes 
does man, aiming his shafts at a near but petty 
mark, hit a greater and more distant target. 


XLVII 
TOTEMISM AND ART! 


While totemism has not demonstrably enlarged 
the material resources or increased the wealth of its 
votaries, it seems unquestionably to have done some- 
thing to stir in them a sense of art and to improve 
the manual dexterity which is requisite to embody 
artistic ideals. If it was not the mother, it has 
been the foster-mother of painting and sculpture. 
The rude drawings on the ground, in which the 
natives of Central Australia depict with a few 
simple colours their totems and the scenes of their 
native land, may be said to represent the germ of 
that long development which under happier skies 
blossomed out into the frescoes of Michael Angelo, 
the cartoons of Raphael, the glowing canvases of 
Titian, and the unearthly splendours of Turner’s 
divine creations. And among these same primitive 
savages totemism has suggested a beginning of plastic 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. p. 25. 


EFFECT OF TOTEMISM ON SOCIAL TIES 97 


as well as of pictorial art; for in the magical cere- 
monies which they perform for the multiplication 
or the control of their totems they occasionally fashion 
great images of the totemic animals, sometimes 
constructing out of boughs the effigy of a witchetty 
grub in its chrysalis state, sometimes moulding a long 
tortuous mound of wet sand into the likeness of a 
wriggling water-snake. Now it is to be observed 
that the motive which leads the Australian aborigines 
to represent their totems in pictorial or in plastic 
forms is not a purely aesthetic one; it is not a delight in 
art for art’s sake. Their aim is thoroughly practical ; 
it is either to multiply magically the creatures that 
they may be eaten, or to repress them magically that 
they may not harm their votaries. In short, in all 
such cases art is merely the handmaid of magic: it 
is employed as an instrument by the totemic magicians 
to ensure a supply of food or to accomplish some other 
desirable object. Thus in Australia, as in many other 
parts of the world, magic may with some show of 
reason be called the nursing mother of art. 


XLVIII 


EFFECT OF TOTEMISM IN STRENGTHENING 
THE SOCIAL TIES} 


If totemism has apparently done little to foster the 
growth of higher forms of religion, it has probably 
done much to strengthen the social ties and thereby 
to serve the cause of civilization, which depends for 
its progress on the cordial co-operation of men in 
society, on their mutual trust and good-will, and on 


1 Totemism and Exogamty, vol. iv. pp. 38-40. 
| H 


98 MAN IN SOCIETY 


their readiness to subordinate their personal interests 
to the interests of the community. A society thus 
united in itself is strong and may survive; a society 
rent by discord and dissension is weak and likely to 
perish either through internal disruption or by the 
impact of other societies, themselves perhaps individ- 
ually weaker, yet collectively stronger, because they 
act as one. The tendency of totemism to knit men 
together in social groups is noticed again and again 
by the writers who have described the institution from 
personal observation. They tell us that persons who 
have the same totem regard each other as kinsmen 
and are ready to befriend and stand by one another in 
difficulty and danger. Indeed, the totemic tie is some- 
times deemed more binding than that of blood. A 
sense of common obligations and common responsi- 
bility pervades the totem clan. Each member of it is 
answerable even with his life for the deeds of every 
other member ; each of them resents and is prompt 
to avenge a wrong done to his fellows as a wrong done 
to himself. In nothing does this solidarity of the clan 
come out more strikingly than in the law of the blood 
feud. The common rule is that the whole of a clan is 
responsible for a homicide committed by any of its 
members, and that if the manslayer himself is for any 
reason beyond the reach of vengeance, his crime may 
and should be visited by the clan of his victim on 
any member of the murderer’s clan, even though the 
person to be punished may have had no hand whatever 
in the murder. To civilized men it seems unjust that 
the innocent should thus be made to suffer for the 
guilty, and no doubt, if we regard the matter from a 
purely abstract point of view, we must affirm that the 
infliction of vicarious suffering is morally wrong and 


EFFECT OF TOTEMISM ON SOCIAL TIES 99 


indefensible ; no man, we say, and say rightly, ought 
to be punished except for his own act and deed. Yet 
if we look at the facts of life as they are and not as they 
ought to be, we can hardly help concluding that the 
principle of collective responsibility, with its necessary 
corollary of vicarious suffering, has been of the greatest 
utility, perhaps absolutely essential, to the preserva- 
tion and well-being of society. Nothing else, probably, 
could have availed to keep primitive men together in 
groups large enough to make headway against the 
opposition of hostile communities ; in the struggle for 
existence a tribe which attempted to deal out even- 
handed justice between man and man on the principle 
of individual responsibility .would probably have: 
succumbed before a tribe which acted as one man on 
the principle of collective responsibility. Before the 
champions of abstract justice could have ascertained 
the facts, laid the blame on the real culprit, and 
punished him as he deserved, they must have run 
a serious risk of being exterminated by their more 
impetuous and less scrupulous neighbours. 

However much, therefore, the principle of collect- 
ive responsibility may be condemned in theory, there 
can hardly be a doubt that it has been very useful in 
practice. If it has done great injustice to individuals, 
it has done great service to the community ; the many 
have benefited by the sufferings of a few. Men are 
far readier to repress wrong-doing in others if they 
think that they themselves stand a chance of being 
punished for it than if they know that the punishment 
will only fall on the actual offender. Thus a habit is 
begotten of regarding all misdemeanours with severe 
disapprobation as injuries done to the whole society ; 
and this habit of mind may grow into an instinctive 


100 MAN IN SOCIETY 


condemnation and abhorrence of wrong-doing, apart 
from the selfish consideration of any harm which 
the wrong may possibly entail on the person who 
condemns and abhors it. In short, the principle of 
collective responsibility not only checks crime but 
tends to reform the criminal by fostering a disinterested 
love of virtue and so enabling society to adopt in time 
a standard of justice which approaches more nearly to 
the ideal. 

So far, therefore, as totemism has drawn closer the 
bonds which unite men in society it has directly pro- 
moted the growth of a purer and higher morality. An 
institution which has done this has deserved well 
of humanity. Its speculative absurdities may be 
forgiven for the sake of its practical good, and in 
summing up judgement we may perhaps pronounce 
that sentence of acquittal which was pronounced long 
ago on another poor sinner: Remzittuntur et peccata 
multa, quoniam dilexit multum. 


XLIX 
THE PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY}! 


The hypothesis that totemism is, in its origin, a 
savage theory of conception seems to furnish a simple 


and adequate explanation of the facts. But there is one 


feature of totemism, as that system commonly meets 
us, which the hypothesis does not account for, namely, 
the exogamy of the totem stocks; in other words, the 
rule that a man may not marry nor have connexion 
with a woman of the same totem as himself. That 
rule is, indeed, quite inexplicable on the view that 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 162-165. 


THE PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY 101 


men and women regard themselves as identical with 
their totem animals; for as these animals mate with 
their kind, why should not men and women of the 
same totem do so too, seeing that they are only slightly 
disguised forms of their totem animal? But the truth 
is that exogamy forms no part of true totemism. It is 
a great social reform of a much later date, which, in 
many communities, has accidentally modified the 
totemic system, while in others it has left that system 
entirely unaffected. Native Australian traditions re- 
present, doubtless with truth, exogamy as an innova- 
tion imported into a community already composed of 
totem stocks; and these traditions are amply con- 
firmed by a study of the social organization of the 
Australian tribes, which proves, as Messrs. Howitt, 
Spencer, and Gillen have rightly perceived, that the 
primary exogamous unit was not the totem stock, but 
the moiety of the whole tribe. Each tribe was, in 
fact, divided into two halves, all the children of the 
same mother being assigned to the same half, and the 
men of each half were obliged to take their wives from 
the other half. At a later time each of these halves 
was, in some tribes, again subdivided into two, and 
the men and women in each of the four quarters thus 
constituted were forced to take their wives or husbands 
‘from a particular one, and only one, of the remaining 
three quarters ; while it was arranged that the children 
should belong neither to their mother’s nor to their 
father’s quarter, but to one of the remaining two 
quarters. The effect of the division of the tribe into 
two exogamous halves, with all the children of the 
same mother ranged on the same side, is obviously to 
prevent the marriage of brothers with sisters. The 
effect of the division of the tribe into four exogamous 


102 MAN IN SOCIETY 


quarters, coupled with the rules that every person may 
marry only into one quarter, and that the children 
must belong to a quarter which is neither that of their 
father nor that of their mother, is to prevent the 
marriage of parents with children. Now, since these 
successive bisections of the tribe into two, four, or 
even eight exogamous divisions, with an increasingly 
complicated rule of descent, have every appearance 
of being artificial, we may fairly infer that the effect 
they actually produce is the effect they were intended 
to produce; in other words, that they were deliber- 
ately devised and adopted as a means of preventing 
the marriage, at first, of brothers with sisters, and, at a 
later time, of parents with children. 

That this was so I regard as practically certain. 
But the question why early man in Australia, and, — 
apparently, in many other parts of the world, objected 
to these unions, and took elaborate precautions to 
prevent them, is difficult to answer, except in a vague 
and general way. We should probably err if we 
imagined that this far-reaching innovation or reform 
was introduced from any such moral antipathy to 
incest as most, though by no means all, races have 
manifested within historical times. That antipathy. 
is rather the fruit than the seed of the prohibition of 
incest. It is the slowly accumulated effect of a pro- 
hibition which has been transmitted through successive 
generations from time immemorial. To suppose that 
the law of incest originated in any instinctive horror 
of the act would be to invert the relation of cause and 
effect, and to commit the commonest of all blunders in 
investigating early society, that of interpreting it in 
the light of our modern feelings and habits, and so 
using the late products of evolution to account for its 


THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY IN AUSTRALIA 103 


primordial germs; in short, it would be to explain the 
beginning by the end, instead of the end by the 
beginning. 

Further, the original ground of objection to 
incestuous unions certainly cannot have been any 
notion that they were injurious to the offspring, and 
that for two reasons. In the first place, it is a moot 
question among men of science at the present day 
whether the closest inbreeding has, in itself, when 
the parents are perfectly healthy, any such harmful 
effect. However that question may be finally decided, 
we cannot suppose that the rudest savages perceived 
ages ago what, with all the resources of accurate 
observation and long-continued experiments in breed- 
ing animals, modern science has not yet conclusively 
established. But in the second place, not only is it 
impossible that the savage can have detected so very 
dubious an effect, but it is impossible that he can even 
have imagined it. For if, down to the present day, 
the Central Australians, who practise strict exogamy, 
do not believe that children are the result of the 
intercourse of the sexes, their still ruder forefathers 
certainly cannot have introduced exogamy at a more 
or less remote period for the purpose of remedying 
the action of a cause, the existence of which they 


denied. 
i 
THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY IN AUSTRALIA} 


These very primitive savages have carried out the 
principle of exogamy with a practical ingenuity and 
a logical thoroughness and precision such as no other 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 105-112, 120-121. 


wa 4 MAN IN SOCIETY 


known race of men exhibit in their marriage system ; 
and accordingly a study of their matrimonial institu- 
tions, which have been accurately described by highly 
competent observers, affords a better insight into the 
meaning of exogamy than can be obtained elsewhere. 
It is accordingly to Australia that we must look for 
a solution of the enigma of exogamy as well as of 
totemism. 

Full details as to the Australian systems of marriage 
have already been laid before the reader,! and I have 
exhibited their general principles in outline so as to 
bring out clearly their aim and purpose. We have 
seen that these marriage systems fall into a series of 
varying complexity from the two-class system, which - 
is the simplest, to the eight-class system, which is the 
most complex, with a four-class system occupying 
an intermediate position between the two extremes. 
All three systems—the two-class system, the four-class 
system, and the eight-class system—are compatible 
either with male or with female descent ; and in fact 
the two-class system and the four-class system are 
actually found sometimes with male and sometimes 
with female descent, while on the other hand the 
eight-class system has hitherto been discovered with 
male descent only. Further, I pointed out that these 
three systems appear to have been produced by a 
series of successive bisections of the community, 
the two-class system resulting from the first bisection, 
the four-class system resulting from the second 
bisection, and the eight-class system resulting from 
the third bisection. Further, we saw that the effect 
of these successive bisections of the community into 
exogamous classes, with their characteristic rules of 


1 In Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 175-579. 


THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY IN AUSTRALIA 105 


descent, was to bar the marriage of persons whom 
the natives regard as too near of kin, each new 
bisection striking out a fresh list of kinsfolk from the 
number of those with whom marriage might be 
lawfully contracted; and as the effect produced by 
these means is in accordance with the deeply-rooted 
opinions and feelings of the natives on the subject of 
marriage, we appear to be justified in inferring that 
each successive bisection of the community was deliber- 
ately instituted for the purpose of preventing the 
marriage of near kin. In no other way does it seem 
possible to explain in all its details a system at once 
so complex and so regular. It is hardly too much 
to affirm that no other human institution bears the 
impress of deliberate design stamped on it more 
clearly than the exogamous classes of the Australian 
aborigines. To suppose that they have originated 
through a series of undesigned coincidences, and 
that they only subserve by accident the purpose which 
they actually fulfil and which is cordially approved 
of by the natives themselves, is to tax our credulity 
almost as heavily as it would be to suppose that the 
complex machinery of a watch has come together 
without human design by a mere fortuitous concourse 
of atoms, and that the purpose which it serves of 
marking time on the dial, and for the sake of which 
the owner of the watch carries it about with him, is 
simply an accidental result of its atomic configuration. 
The attempt in the name of science to eliminate human 
will and purpose from the history of early human 
institutions fails disastrously when the attempt is 
made upon the marriage system of the Australian 
aborigines. | 

We have seen, first, that the effect of the two-class 


106 MAN IN SOCIETY 


system is to bar the marriage of brothers with sisters 
in every case, but not in all cases the marriage of 
parents with children, nor the marriage of certain 
first cousins, namely, the children of a brother and 
of a sister respectively ; second, that the effect of the 
four-class system is to bar the marriage of brothers 
with sisters and of parents with children in every case, 
but not the marriage of first cousins, the children of 
a brother and of a sister respectively ; thirdly, that the 
effect of the eight-class system is to bar the marriage 
of brothers with sisters, of parents with children, and 
of first cousins, the children of a brother and of a 
sister respectively. 

Hence if we are right in assuming that these three 
marriage systems were instituted successively and in 
this order for the purpose of effecting just what they 
do effect, it follows that the two-class system was in- 
stituted to prevent the marriage of. brothers with 
sisters ; that the four-class system was instituted :to 
prevent the marriage of parents with children; and 
that the eight-class system was instituted to prevent 
the marriage of certain first cousins, the children of a 
brother and of a sister respectively, the marriage of all 
other first cousins (the children of two brothers or of 
two sisters) having been already prevented by the 
institution of the two-class system. If this inference ~ 
is correct, we see that in Australia exogamy originated, 
just as Morgan supposed, in an attempt to prevent the 
marriage of brothers with sisters, and that the pro- 
hibitions of marriage with parents and with certain 
first cousins followed later. Thus the primary pro- 
hibition is that of marriage between brothers and 
sisters and not, as might perhaps have been expected, 
between parents and children. From this it does not 


THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY IN AUSTRALIA 107 


necessarily follow that the Australian aborigines enter- 
tain a deeper horror of incest between brothers and 
sisters than of incest between parents and children. 
All that we can fairly infer is that before the two-class 
system was instituted incest between brothers and 
sisters had been commoner than incest between parents 
and children, and that accordingly the first necessity 
was to prevent it. The aversion to incest between 
parents and children appears to be universal among 
the Australian aborigines, as well among tribes with 
two classes as among tribes with four classes, although 
the two-class system itself is not a bar to certain cases 
of that incest. Thus we perceive, what it is important 
to bear steadily in mind, that the dislike of certain 
marriages must always have existed in the minds of 
the people, or at least in the minds of their leaders, 
before that dislike, so to say, received legal sanction 
by being embodied in an exogamous rule. In demo- 
cratic societies, like those of the Australian savages, 
law only gives practical effect to thoughts that have 
been long simmering in the minds of many. This ts 
well exemplified in the prohibition of marriage be-: 
tween certain first cousins as well as in the prohibition 
of marriage between parents and children. For many 
Australian tribes dislike and prohibit all marriages 
between first cousins, even though they have not 
incorporated that dislike and prohibition in their 
exogamous organization by adopting the eight-class 
system, which effectually prevents all such marriages. 

The aversion, whether instinctive or acquired, to 
the forbidden marriages shows itself markedly in the 
customs of social avoidance which in many savage 
communities persons who stand in the prohibited 
degrees of kinship or affinity observe towards each 


108 MAN IN SOCIETY 


other; for the only reasonable explanation of such 
customs, which have been traced throughout most 
of the exogamous and totemic tribes of the world, is 
that they are precautions against unions which the 
people regard as incestuous. In some Australian 
tribes this custom of avoidance is observed between 
brothers and sisters, although brothers and sisters are 
universally barred to each other in marriage by all the 
exogamous systems, the two-class system, the four- 
class system, and the eight-class system alike. No 
doubt it is possible theoretically to explain this avoid- 
ance as merely an effect of the exogamous prohibition. 
But this explanation becomes improbable when we 
observe that similar customs of mutual avoidance are 
frequently observed towards each other by persons 
‘who are not barred to each other by the exogamous 
rules of the classes. For example, the custom that a 
man must avoid his wife’s mother is observed in 
Australia by tribes which have female descent as well 
as by tribes which have male descent; yet in tribes 
which have two classes with female descent a woman 
always belongs to the same exogamous class as her 
daughter, and is therefore theoretically marriageable 
with her daughter’s husband. Similarly with first 
cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister re- 
spectively, they are sometimes bound to avoid each 
other even although the exogamous system of the tribe 
interposes no barrier to their union. Hence it is a 
legitimate inference that in all such customs of mutual 
avoidance between persons who are sexually marriage- 
able, but socially unmarriageable, with each other, 
we see rather the cause than the effect of exogamy, the 
germ of the institution rather than its fruit. That 
germ, if I am right, is a feeling of dread or aversion 


THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY IN AUSTRALIA 109 


to sexual union with certain persons, a feeling which © 
has found legal or rather customary expression in the 
exogamous prohibitions. The remarkable fact that 
the custom of mutual avoidance is often observed 
between adult brothers and sisters and between parents 
and their adult children seems to tell strongly against 
the view of Dr. Westermarck, that sexual desire is not 
naturally excited between persons who have long 
lived together ; for no classes of persons usually live 
longer together than brothers with their sisters and 
parents with their children; none, therefore, should 
be more perfectly exempt from the temptation to in- 
cest, none should be freer in their social intercourse 
with each other than brothers with sisters and parents 
with children. That freedom, indeed, exists among 
all civilized nations, but it does not exist among all 
savages, and the difference in this respect between the 
liberty granted to the nearest relations by civilization 
and the restrictions imposed on them by savagery 
certainly suggests that the impulse to incest, which is 
almost extinct in a higher state of society, is so far 
from being inoperative in a lower state of society that 
very stringent precautions are needed to repress it. 
Thus the exogamous system of the Australian 
aborigines, forming a graduated series of restrictions 
on marriage which increase progressively with the 
complexity of the system as it advances from two 
through four to eight classes, appears to have been 
deliberately devised for the purpose of preventing 
sexual unions which the natives regarded as incestuous. 
The natural and almost inevitable inference is that 
before the first bisection of a community into two 
exogamous classes such incestuous unions between 
persons near of kin, especially between blood brothers 


110 MAN IN SOCIETY 


and sisters, were common; in short, that at some 
period before the rise of exogamy barriers between the 
sexes did not exist, or in other words there,was sexual 
promiscuity. Under the influence of exogamy, which 
in one form or another is and probably has been for 
ages dominant in Australia, the period of sexual promis- 
cuity belongs to a more or less distant past, but clear 
traces of it survive in the right of intercourse which in 
many Australian tribes the men exercise over the 
unmarried girls before these are handed over to their 
husbands. That the licence granted to men on these 
occasions is no mere outburst of savage lust but a relic 
of an ancient custom is strongly suggested by the 
methodical way in which the right is exercised by 
certain, not all, of the men of the tribe, who take their 
turn in a prescribed and strictly regulated order. Thus 
even these customs are by no means cases of abso- 
lutely unrestricted promiscuity, but taken together 
with the converging evidence of the series of exo- 
gamous classes they point decidedly to the former 
prevalence of far looser relations between the sexes — 
than are now to be found among any of the Australian 
aborigines. 

But it must always be borne in mind that, in 
postulating sexual promiscuity, or something like it, 
as the starting-point of the present Australian marriage 
system, we affirm nothing as to the absolutely primi- 
tive relations of the sexes among mankind. All that 
we can say is that the existing marriage customs of 
the Australian aborigines appear to have sprung 
from an immediately preceding stage of social evolu- 
tion in which marriage, understood as a lasting union 
between single pairs, was either unknown or rare 
and exceptional, and in which even the nearest 


THE ORIGIN OF EXOGAMY IN AUSTRALIA 111 


relations were allowed to cohabit with each other. 
But, as I have already pointed out, though the 
Australian savages are primitive in a relative sense 
by comparison with ourselves, they are almost certainly 
very far indeed from being primitive in the absolute 
sense of the word; on the contrary, there is every 
reason to think that by comparison with truly primaeval 
man they have made immense progress in intelligence, 
morality, and the arts of life. Hence even if it could 
be proved that before they attained to their present 
level of culture they had passed through a lower stage 
in which marriage as we understand it hardly existed, 
we should have no right to infer that their still more 
remote ancestors had continued in a state of sexual 
promiscuity ever since man became man by a gradual 
evolution from a lower form of animal life. It is no 
doubt interesting to speculate on what may have been 
the relations of the human sexes to each other from 
the earliest times down to the period when savage man 
emerges on the stage of history ; but such speculations 
are apparently destined to remain speculations for 
ever, incapable of demonstration or even of being 
raised to a high degree of probability. 

Thus the whole complex exogamous system of 
the Australian aborigines is explicable in a simple 
and natural way if we suppose that it sprang from a 
growing aversion to the marriage of near kin, begin- 
ning with the marriage of brothers with sisters and 
of parents with children, and ending at the marriage 
of cousins, who sometimes fell within and some- 
times without the table of forbidden degrees. To 
prevent these marriages the tribes deliberately sub- 
divided themselves into two, four, or eight exogamous 


112 MAN IN SOCIETY 


classes, the three systems succeeding each other in 
a series of growing complexity as each was found 
inadequate to meet the increasing demands of public 
opinion and morality. The scheme no doubt took 
shape in the minds of a few men of a sagacity and 
practical ability above the ordinary, who by their 
influence and authority persuaded their fellows to 
put it in practice; but at the same time the plan 
must have answered to certain general sentiments of 
what was right and proper, which had been springing 
up in the community long before a definite social 
organization was adopted to enforce them. And 
what is true of the origination of the system in its 
simplest form is doubtless true of each successive step 
which added at once to the complexity and to the 
efficiency of the curious machinery which savage wit 
had devised for the preservation of sexual morality. 
Thus, and thus only, does it seem possible to explain 
a social system at once so intricate, so regular, and so 
perfectly adapted to the needs and the opinions of the 
people who practise it. In the whole of history, as 
I have already remarked, it would hardly be possible 
to find another human institution on which the impress 
of deliberate thought and purpose has been stamped 


more plainly than on the exogamous systems of the © 


Australian aborigines. 


LI 


EXOGAMY AND GROUP MARRIAGE! 


Thus we may suppose that exogamy replaced a 
previous state of practically unrestricted sexual pro- 
miscuity. What the new system introduced was not 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp, 121-122. 


THE NARROWING RING OF MARRIAGE 113 


individual marriage but group marriage; that is, it 
took away from all the men of the community the 
unlimited right of intercourse with all the women and 
obliged a certain group of men to confine themselves 
to a certain group of women. At first these groups 
were large, but they were reduced in size by each 
successive bisection of the tribe. The two-class system 
left every man free to cohabit, roughly speaking, with 
half the women of the community: the four-class 
system forbade him to have sexual relations with 
more than one-fourth of the women; and the eight- 
class system restricted him to one-eighth of the women. 
Thus each successive step in the exogamous progres- 
sion erected a fresh barrier between the sexes ; it was 
an advance from promiscuity through group marriage 


' towards monogamy. Of this practice of group 


marriage, intermediate between the two extreme 
terms of the series, promiscuity on the one side and 
monogamy on the other, the most complete record is 
furnished by the classificatory system of relationship, 
which defines the relations of men and women to each 
other according to the particular generation and the 
particular exogamous class to which they belong. 
The cardinal relationship of the whole system is the 
marriageability of a group of men with a group of 
women. All the other relationships of the system 
hinge on this central one. 


LII 
THE NARROWING RING OF MARRIAGE}? 


But in dealing with aboriginal Australian society 
we are not left to infer the former prevalence of group 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 124-125. 


114 MAN IN SOCIETY 


marriage from the classificatory system of relationship 
alone. A practice of group marriage actually prevails, 
or prevailed till lately, among many Australian 
tribes, especially in the dreary regions about Lake 
Eyre, where nature may almost be said to have 
exhausted her ingenuity: in making the country un- 
inhabitable, and where accordingly the aborigines, 
fully occupied in maintaining a bare struggle for 
existence, enjoyed none of those material advantages 
which are essential to intellectual and social progress. 
Naturally enough, therefore, the old custom of group 
marriage has lingered longest amongst these most 
backward tribes, who have retained exogamy in its 
simplest and oldest form, that of the two-class system. 
But even among them the marriage groups are by no 
means coincident with the exogamous classes; they 
are far narrower in extent, they are a still closer 
approximation to the custom of individual marriage, 
that is, to the marriage of one man with one woman 
or with several women, which is now the ordinary 
form of sexual union in the Australian tribes. Thus 
the history of exogamy may be compared to a series 
of concentric rings placed successively one within the 
other, each of lesser circumference than its predecessor 
and each consequently circumscribing within narrower 
bounds the freedom of the individuals whom it encloses. 
The outermost ring includes all the women of the 
tribe ; the innermost ring includes one woman only. 
The first ring represents promiscuity ; the last ring 
represents monogamy. 


THE ORIGIN OF PROHIBITED DEGREES 115 


LIII 
THE ORIGIN OF PROHIBITED DEGREES } 


To sum up. The effect of the two-class system is 
to bar the marriage of brothers with sisters, but not 
in all cases the marriage of parents with children, 
nor the marriage of a man’s children with his sister’s 
children. The effect of the four-class system is to 
bar the marriage of brothers with sisters and of 
parents with children in every case, but not the 
marriage of a man’s children with his sister’s children. 
The effect of the eight-class system is to bar the 
marriage of brothers with sisters, of parents with 
children, and of a man’s children with his sister’s 
children. The result of. each successive dichotomy 
is thus to strike out another class of relations from 
the list of. persons with whom marriage may be 
contracted: it is to add one more to the list of pro- 
hibited degrees. 

But is the effect which these successive segmenta- 
tions actually produce the effect which they were 
intended to produce? I think we may safely conclude 
that it is. For the aborigines of Australia at the 
present day certainly entertain a deep horror of incest, 
that is, of just those marriages which the exogamous 
segmentations of the community are fitted to preclude? ; 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. 
pp. 279-281. 

2 This does not, however, apply 
universally to cousin-marriage in Aus- 
tralia; for certain forms of cousin- 
marriage (namely the marriage of a 
man with the daughter of his mother’s 
brother or of his father’s sister), which 
are precluded by the eight-class system, 
are allowed or even preferred by some 


Australian tribes as by many peoples 
in other parts of the world. On the 
legitimacy or desirability of cousin- 
marriage the opinions of mankind 
seem to have diverged widely in all 
ages and all countries. I have dis- 
cussed the subject at large elsewhere 
(Folk-lore in the Old Testament, ii. 98 
sgq.). See below, pp. 172 sq¢.. 


116 MAN IN SOCIETY 


and down to recent times they commonly punished 
all such incestuous intercourse with death. It would 
therefore be perfectly natural that their ancestors 
should have taken the most stringent measures to 
prevent the commission of what they, like their 
descendants, probably regarded as a crime of the 
deepest dye and fraught with danger to society. 
Thus an adequate motive for the institution of their 
present marriage laws certainly exists among the 
Australian aborigines; and as these laws, in their 
combined complexity and regularity, have all the 
appearance of being artificial, it is legitimate to infer 
that they were devised by the natives for the purpose 
of achieving the very results which they do effectively 
achieve. Those who are best acquainted at first 
hand with the Australian savages believe them to 
be capable both of conceiving and of executing such 
social reforms as are implied in the institution of their 
present marriage system. We have no right to reject 
the deliberate opinion of the most competent authorities 
on such a point, especially when all the evidence at our 
disposal goes to confirm it. To dismiss as baseless 
an opinion so strongly supported is contrary to every 
sound principle of scientific research. It is to sub- 
stitute the deductive for the inductive method ; for 
it sets aside the evidence of first-hand observation 
in favour of our own abstract notions of probability. 
We civilized men who know savages only at second 
hand through the reports of others are bound to accept 
the well-weighed testimony of accurate and trust- 
worthy observers as to the facts of savage life, whether 
that testimony agrees with our prepossessions or not. 
If we accept some of their statements and reject 
others according to an arbitrary standard of our own, 


THE RELATION OF TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY 117 


there is an end of scientific anthropology. We may 
then, if we please, erect a towering structure of 
hypothesis, which will perhaps hang together and look 
fair outwardly, but is rotten inwardly, because the 
premises on which it rests are false. In the present 
case the only ground for denying that the elaborate 
marriage system of the Australian aborigines has been 
devised by them for the purpose which it actually 
serves appears to be a preconceived idea that these 
Savages are incapable of thinking out and putting 
in practice a series of checks and counter-checks on 
marriage so intricate that many civilized persons 
lack either the patience or the ability to understand 
them. Yet the institution which puzzles some 
European minds seems to create little or no difficulty 
for the intellect of the Australian savage. In his 
hands the complex and cumbrous machine works 
regularly and smoothly enough ; and this fact of itself 
should make us hesitate to affirm that he could not 
have invented an instrument which he uses so skilfully. 


LIV . 


THE RELATION OF TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY 
IN AUSTRALIA! 


To complete our view of Australian exogamy it 
only remains to indicate the relation of the exogamous 
classes to the totemic clans, and to show how the 
exogamy of the clans camie, under certain circum- 
stances, to follow as a corollary from the exogamy of 
the classes, that is, primarily from the bisection of a 
community into two intermarrying groups. Among 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 127-132. 


es hte, 6 7 


the Arunta and other tribes of Central Australia, 
whose totemic, though not their exogamous, system 
appears to be the most primitive, the totemic clans 
are not exogamous, and the reason why they are not 
exogamous is that these tribes have retained the truly 
primitive mode of determining a person’s totem, not 
by the totem of his father or mother, but by the 
accident of the place where his mother imagined that 
the infant’s spirit had passed into her womb. Such 
a mode of determining the totem, if it is rigorously 
observed, clearly prevents the totems from being 
hereditary and therefore renders them useless for 
the purposes of exogamy; since with conceptional 
totemism of this sort you cannot prevent, for example, 
a brother from cohabiting with a sister or a mother 
from cohabiting with her son by laying down a rule 
that no man shall cohabit with a woman of the same 
totem. For with conceptional totemism it may happen, 
and often does happen, that the'brother’s totem is 
different from the sister’s totem and the mother’s 
totem different from the son’s totem. In such cases, 
therefore, an exogamous rule which forbids cohabita- 
tion between men and women of the same totem 
would be powerless to prevent the incest of a brother 
with a sister or the incest of a mother with her son. 
Accordingly the Arunta and other tribes of Central 
Australia, as well as the Banks’ Islanders, who have 
retained the primitive system of conceptional totemism, 
have logically and rightly never applied the rule of 
exogamy to their totemic clans, because they saw, 
what indeed was obvious, that its application to them 
would not effect the object which exogamy was in- 
stituted to effect, to wit, the prevention of the marriage 
of near kin. Thus the omission of these tribes to 


118 MAN IN SOCIETY 


THE RELATION OF TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY ) 119 


apply the rule of exogamy to their totemic clans, while 
they strictly applied it to the classes, not only indicates 
in the clearest manner the sharp distinction which we 
must draw between the exogamous classes and the 
totemic clans, but also furnishes a strong argument 
in favour of the view that exogamy was instituted for 
no other purpose than to prevent the marriage of near 
kin, since it was strictly applied to those social divisions 
which effected that purpose, and was not applied at 
all to those social divisions which could not possibly 
effect it. 

From this it follows that amongst the Arunta and 
other tribes of Central Australia exogamy was intro- 
duced before the totems had become hereditary. Was 
it so in the other Australian tribes? It is not necessary 
to suppose so. We may imagine that people took 
their totems regularly from either their father or their 
mother before the introduction of exogamy, that is, 
while persons of the same totem were still free to co- 
habit with each other. If, then, exogamy in its 
simplest form of a two-class system were instituted in 
a community which up to that time had consisted of a 
number of hereditary totemic, but not exogamous, 
clans, it is easy to see that the exogamy of the totemic 
clans would be a natural, though not a necessary, con- - 
sequence. For an obvious way of drawing the new 
exogamous line through the community would be to 
divide up the hereditary totemic clans between the 
two exogamous classes, placing so many clans on one 
side of the line to form the one class, and so many clans 
on the other side of the line to form the other class. In 
this way, given the exogamy of the two classes and 
the heredity of the totemic clans, the clans were hence- 
forth exogamous; no man in future might marry a 


120 MAN IN SOCIETY 


woman of his own clan or a woman of any clan in his 
own class; he might only marry a woman of one of 
the clans in the other class. Thus it is quite possible 
that in all the Australian tribes in which the totemic 
clans are now exogamous, they have been so from the 
very introduction of exogamy, though not of course 
before it. 

On the other hand, the circumstance that many 
tribes in the secluded centre of the Australian continent 
have retained the primitive system of conceptional 
totemism along with the comparatively new custom 
of exogamy, suggests that everywhere in Australia 
the exogamous revolution may have been inaugurated 
in communities which in like manner had not yet 
advanced from conceptional to hereditary totemism. 
And there is the more reason to think so because 
the tribes which lie somewhat farther from the 
Centre and nearer to the sea are at the present day 
still in a state of transition from conceptional to 
hereditary totemism. Amongst them the theory which 
bridges over the gap between the two systems is 
that, while the mother is still supposed to conceive 
in the old way by the entrance of a spirit child into 
her, none but a spirit of the father’s totem will 
dare to take up its abode in his wife. In this way 
the old conceptional theory of totemism is preserved 
and combined with the new principle of heredity : 
the child is still born in the ancient fashion, but it now 
invariably takes its father’s totem. An analogous 
theory, it is obvious, might be invented to reconcile 
conceptional totemism with a rule that a child always 
takes its mother’s totem rather than its father’s. Thus, 
given an original system of conceptional totemism, it 
is capable of developing, consistently with its prin- 


THE RELATION OF TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY 121 


ciples, into hereditary totemism either with paternal 
or with maternal descent. But given an original 
system of hereditary totemism it seems impossible to 
explain in any probable manner how it could have 
developed into conceptional and non-hereditary totem- 
ism such as we find it among the Arunta and other 
tribes of Central Australia. This is surely a very 
strong reason for regarding conceptional totemism 
as primary or original, and hereditary totemism as 
secondary or derivative. 

On the whole, then, I incline to believe that when 
exogamy was first instituted in Australia the natives 
were still divided into totemic clans like those of the 
Arunta in which the totems had not yet become 
hereditary ; that is, in which every person derived 
his totem from the accident of his mother’s fancy when 
she first felt her womb quickened. The transition 
from this conceptional to hereditary totemism would 
then be gradual, not sudden. From habitually co- 
-habiting with a certain woman a man would come to 
desire that the children to whom she gave birth and 
whom, though he did not know they were his offspring, 
he helped to guard and to feed, should have his totem 
and so should belong to his totemic clan. For that 
purpose he might easily put pressure on his wife, 
forbidding her to go near spots where she might con- 
ceive spirits of any totems but his own. If such feel- 
ings were general among the men of a tribe, a custom 
of inheriting the totem from the father might become 
first common and then universal; when it was com- 
plete, the transition from purely conceptional totemism 
to purely hereditary totemism in the male line would 
be complete also. On the other hand, if it was the 
mother who particularly desired that her children 


122 MAN IN SOCIETY 


should take her totem and belong to her totemic clan, 
the transition from conceptional totemism to heredi- 
tary totemism in the female line would have been 
equally facile, indeed much more so; for seeing that 
under the conceptional system a child’s totem is 
always determined by the mother’s fancy or, to be 
more exact, by her statement as to her fancy, it would 
be easy for her either to frequent places haunted by 
spirits of her own totem alone, in order to receive one of 


them into her womb, or at all events, if she were un- | 


scrupulous, to fib that she had done so, and in this 
way to satisfy the longing of her mother’s heart by 
getting children of her own totem. That may perhaps 
be one, and not the least influential, cause why among 
primitive totemic tribes the totem oftener descends in 
the maternal than in the paternal line. 

While exogamy in the form of group marriage 
may thus have started either with female or with 
male descent, in other words, either-with mother-kin 
or with father-kin, there are many causes which 
would tend in course of time to give a preference to 
male descent or father-kin over female descent or 
mother-kin. Amongst these causes the principal 
would probably be the gradual restriction of group 
marriage within narrower and narrower limits and 
with it the greater certainty of individual fatherhood ; 


for it is to be remembered that although exogamy 


appears to have been instituted at a time when the 
nature of physical paternity was unknown, most 
tribes which still observe the institution are now, and 
probably have long been, acquainted with the part 
which the father plays in the begetting of offspring. 
Even in South-Eastern Australia, where, favoured by 
a fine climate and ample supplies of food, the aborigines 


—_<« ieee a 
ol ie 

a 

; 

; 


THE RELATION OF TOTEMISM AND EXOGAMY _ 123 


had made the greatest material and _ intellectual 
progress, the fact of physical paternity was clearly 
recognized, though it is still unknown to the ruder 
tribes of the Centre and the North. And with the 
knowledge of the blood tie which unites a man to his 
children, it is obvious that his wish to draw them 
closer to himself socially would also naturally be 
strengthened. Thus, whereas the system of father- 
kin, once established, is perfectly stable, being never 
exchanged for mother-kin, the system of mother-kin, 
on the other hand, is unstable, being constantly 
liable to be exchanged for father-kin. The chief 
agency in effecting the transition from mother-kin 
to father-kin would appear to have been a general 
increase in material prosperity bringing with it a large 
accession of private property to individuals. For 
it is when a man has much to bequeath to his heirs 
that he becomes sensible of the natural inequity, as 
it now appears to him, of a system of kinship which 
obliges him to transmit all his goods to his sisters’ 
children and none to his own. Hence it is with the 
great development of private property that devices 
for shifting descent from the female to the male line 
most commonly originate. Amongst these devices 
are the practice of making presents to a man’s own 
children in his lifetime, in order that when he dies 
there may be little or nothing to go to his sisters’ 
children; the practice of buying his wife and with 
her the children from her family, so that henceforth 
the father is the owner as well as the begetter of his 
offspring ; and the practice of naming children into 
their father’s clan instead of into their mother’s. 
Examples of all these methods of shifting the line of 
descent from the female to the male line are on record 


124 MAN IN SOCIETY 


in various parts of the world, and no doubt they 
might easily be multiplied. Hence, wherever we find 
a tribe wavering between female descent and male 
descent we may be sure that it is in the act of passing 
from mother-kin to father-kin, and not in the reverse 
direction, since there are many motives which induce 
men to exchange mother-kin for father-kin, but none 
which induce them to exchange father-kin for mother- 
kin. If in Australia there is little or no evidence of 
a transition from maternal to paternal descent, the 
reason is probably to be found in the extreme poverty 
of the Australian aborigines, who, having hardly any 
property to bequeath to their heirs, were not very 
solicitous as to who their heirs should be. 

Thus the whole apparently intricate, obscure, and 
confused system of aboriginal Australian marriage 
and relationship can be readily and simply explained 
on the two principles of conceptional totemism and 
the division of a community into two exogamous 
classes for the sake of preventing the marriage of 
near kin. Given these two principles as starting- 
points, and granted that totemism preceded exogamy, 
we see that the apparent intricacy, obscurity, and 
confusion of the system vanish like clouds and are 
replaced by a clear, orderly, and logical evolution. 
On any other principles, so far as I can perceive, the 
attempt to explain Australian totemism and exogamy 
only darkens darkness and confounds confusion. 


ALTERNATIVE OF FATHER-KIN OR MOTHER-KIN 12 


wr 


LV 


THE ALTERNATIVE OF FATHER-KIN 
OR MOTHER-KIN } 


In what precedes [ have assumed that when a com- 
munity first divided itself into two exogamous classes 
the children were assigned to the class of their mother, 
in other words, that descent was traced in the female 
line. One obvious reason for preferring female to 
male descent would be the certainty and the per- 
manence of the blood relationship between a mother 
and her child compared with the uncertainty and 
frequently the impermanence of the social relationship 
between a man and the children of the woman with 
whom he cohabited ; for in speaking of these early 
times we must always bear in mind that the physical 
relationship of a father to his children was not yet 
recognized, and that he was to them no more than 
their guardian and the consort of their mother. 
Another strong reason, which indeed flows as a 
consequence from the preceding reason, for preferring 
female to male descent in the original two-class 
system of exogamy was that the aversion to incest 
with a mother was probably much older and more 
deeply rooted than the aversion to incest with a 
daughter, and that, while a two-class system with 
female descent bars incest with a mother, a two-class 
system with male descent does not do so; for whereas 
a two-class system with female descent puts a mother 
and her son in the same exogamous class and thereby 
prevents their sexual union, a two-class system with 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 125-127. 


126 MAN IN SOCIETY 


male descent puts mother and son in different exo- 
gamous classes and therefore presents no_ barrier 
to their sexual union. For these reasons it seems 
probable that when exogamy was first instituted most 
people adopted maternal rather than paternal descent 
of the exogamous classes. 

But it need not necessarily have been so. With 
group marriage it is as easy to trace group fatherhood 
as group motherhood, since the group of fathers is 
just as well known as the group of mothers, though 
the individual father may be unknown. It is therefore 
perfectly possible that in instituting exogamy some 
tribes from the beginning preferred to assign children 
to the group of their fathers instead of to the group 
of their mothers. Of course such an assignation would 
not imply any recognition of physical paternity, the 
nature and even existence of which were most probably 
quite unknown to the founders of exogamy. All that 
these primitive savages understood by a father of 
children was a man who cohabited with the children’s 
mother and acted as guardian of the family. That 
cohabitation, whether occasional or prolonged, would 
be a fact as familiar, or nearly as familiar, to every 
member of the community as the fact of the woman’s 
motherhood ; and though nobody thought of connecting 
the cohabitation with the motherhood as cause and 
effect, yet the mere association of the man with the 
woman gave him an interest in her children, and the 
more prolonged the association, in other words, the more 
permanent the marriage, the greater would be the 
interest he would take in them. The children were 
obviously a part of the woman’s body; and if from 
long possession he came to regard the woman as his 
property, he would naturally be led to regard her 


TO Faia 
——_ 
ie 


THE DREAM OF GYNAECOCRACY 127 


children as his property also. In fact, as I have already 
suggested, we may conjecture that a man looked on 
his wife’s children as his chattels long before he knew © 
them to be his offspring. Thus in primitive society it 
is probable that fatherhood was viewed as a social, 
not a physical, relationship of a man to his children. 
But that social relationship may quite well have been 
considered a sufficient reason for assigning children 
to the class of the man who had the right of cohabit- 
ing with their mother rather than to the class of the 
mother herself. Hence we cannot safely assume that 
Australian communities, such as the Arunta and other 
Central tribes, who now transmit their exogamous 
classes in the paternal line, ever transmitted them in 
the maternal line. So far as exogamy is concerned, 
father-kin may be as primitive as mother-kin. 


LVI 
THE DREAM OF GYNAECOCRACY ! 


The ancient and widespread custom of tracing 
descent and inheriting property through the mother 
alone does not by any means imply that the government 
of the tribes which observe the custom is in the hands 
of women; in short, it should always be borne in mind 
that mother-kin does not mean mother-rule. On the 
contrary, the practice of mother-kin prevails most 
extensively amongst the lowest savages, with whom 
woman, instead of being the ruler of man, is always his 
drudge and often little better than his slave. Indeed, 
so far is the system from implying any social superi- 
ority of women that it probably took its rise from what 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonis, Attis, Ostris, vol. ii. pp. 209-212. 


128 MAN IN SOCIETY 


we should regard as their deepest degradation, to wit, 
from a state of society in which the relations of the 
sexes were so loose and vague that children could not 
be fathered on any particular man. 

When we pass from the purely savage state to that 
higher plane of culture in which the accumulation of 
property, and especially of landed property, has be- 
come a powerful instrument of social and political 
influence, we naturally find that wherever the ancient 
preference for the female line of descent has been re- 
tained, it tends to increase the importance and enhance 
the dignity of woman; and her aggrandizement is 
most marked in princely families, where she either her- 
self holds royal authority as well as private property, 
or at least transmits them both to her consort or 
her children. But this social advance of women has 
never been carried so far as to place men as a whole 
in a position of political subordination to them. Even 
where the system of mother-kin in regard to descent 
and property has prevailed most fully, the actual 
government has generally, if not invariably, remained 
in the hands of men. Exceptions have no doubt 
occurred ; women have occasionally arisen who by 
sheer force of character have swayed for a time the 
destinies of their people. But such exceptions are 
rare and their effects transitory ; they do not affect 
the truth of the general rule that human society has 
been governed in the past and, human nature re- 
maining the same, is likely to be governed in the 
future, mainly by masculine force and masculine 
intelligence. 

The theory of a gynaecocracy is in truth a dream 
of visionaries and pedants. And equally chimerical 
is the idea that the predominance of goddesses under 


THE DREAM OF GYNAECOCRACY 129 


a system of mother-kin like that of the Khasis is a 
creation of the female mind. If women ever created 
gods, they would be more likely to give them masculine 
than feminine features. In point of fact the great 
religious ideals which have permanently impressed 
themselves on the world seem always to have been a 
product of the male imagination. Men make gods 
and women worship them. The combination of 
ancestor-worship with mother-kin furnishes a simple 
and sufficient explanation of the superiority of god- 
desses over gods in a state of society where these con- 
ditions prevail. Men naturally assign the first place 
in their devotions to the ancestress from whom they 
trace their descent. We need not resort to a fantastic 
hypothesis of the preponderance of the feminine fancy 
in order to account for the facts. 

The theory that under a system of mother-kin the 
women rule the men and set up goddesses for them 
to worship is indeed so improbable in itself, and so 
contrary to experience, that it scarcely deserves the 
serious attention which it appears to have received. 
But when we have brushed aside these cobwebs, as 
we must do, we are still left face to face with the solid 
fact of the wide prevalence of mother-kin, that is, of 
a social system which traces descent and transmits 
property through women and not through men. That 
a social system so widely spread and so deeply rooted 
should have affected the religion of the peoples who 
practise it, may reasonably be inferred, especially 
when we remember that in primitive communities the 
social relations of the gods commonly reflect the social 
relations of their worshippers. 


130 MAN IN SOCIETY 


LVII 


THE PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY, A GENERAL 
SOLUTION! 


Having found, as it seems, an adequate explanation 
of the growth, though not of the ultimate origin, of 
exogamy in. aboriginal Australia, we naturally ask 
whether a similar explanation can account for the 
growth of exogamy in all the other parts of the world 
where it is practised. The germ of the whole institu- 
tion, if I am right, is the deliberate bisection of the 
whole community into two exogamous classes for the 
purpose of preventing the sexual unions of near kin. 
Accordingly on this hypothesis we should expect to 
find such a bisection or traces of it in all exogamous 
tribes. The facts, however, do not by any means 
altogether answer to that expectation. It is true that 
a division into two exogamous classes, in other words, 
a two-class system, exists commonly, though not uni- 
versally, in Melanesia and is found among some tribes 
of North American Indians, such as the Iroquois, the 
Tlingits, the Haidas, and the Kenais. But the exist- 
ence of two and only two exogamous divisions in a 
community is rare and exceptional. Usually we find 
not two exogamous classes but many exogamous 
clans, as appears to be the invariable rule among the 
numerous totemic peoples of India and Africa. But is 
it not possible that in some communities these exo- 
gamous and totemic clans may once have been grouped 
in exogamous classes or phratries which afterwards 
disappeared, leaving behind them nothing but the 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 132-137. 


PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY, A GENERAL SOLUTION 131 


exogamy of the totemic clans, in other words, the 
prohibition of marriage between men and women of 
the same totemic clans? This is not only possible; it 
appears to have actually happened in totemic com- 
munities widely separated from each other. Thus in 
the Western Islands of Torres Straits there is reason 
to think that the totemic clans were formerly grouped 
in two exogamous classes or phratries, but that the 
exogamy of the classes has been relaxed while the 
exogamy of the totemic clans has been retained. Care- 
ful inquiry led Dr. Seligman to the conclusion that 
the same thing has happened among the Mekeo people 
and the Wagawaga people of New Guinea. In North 
America the very same change is known to have taken 
place among the Iroquois, as we learn from the high 
authority of L. H. Morgan, who lived among them 
for long and knew them.intimately. Formerly, he 
says, the Iroquois were divided into two exogamous 
classes or phratries, each comprising four totemic clans, 
and no man might marry a woman in any of the four 
clans of his own class or phratry without incurring the 
deepest detestation and disgrace. In process of time, 
however, he tells us, the rigour of the system was re- 
laxed, until finally the prohibition of marriage was con- 
fined only to the totemic clan. Again, precisely the 
same change is reported to have taken place among the 
Hurons or Wyandots. Our best authority on the tribe, 
Mr. W. E. Connolly, informs us that formerly the 
Wyandots were divided into two exogamous classes 
or phratries, one of which comprised four and the 
other seven totemic clans. In old times marriage was 
forbidden within the class or phratry as well as within 
the totemic clan, for the clans grouped together in a 
class or phratry were regarded as brothers to each 


132 MAN IN SOCIETY 


other, whereas they were only cousins to the clans 
of the other class or phratry. But at a later time the 
rule prohibiting marriage within the class was abolished 
and the prohibition was restricted to the totemic clan ;. 
in other words, the clan continued to be exogamous 
after the class had ceased to be so. On the other side 
of America the same change would seem to have taken 
place among the Kenais of Alaska, though our in- 
formation as to that tribe is not full and precise enough 
to allow us to speak with confidence. 

These facts show that in tribes which have two 
exogamous classes, each class comprising a number 
of totemic clans, there is a tendency for the exogamy 
of the class to be dropped and the exogamy of the 
clan to be retained. An obvious motive for such 
a change is to be found in the far heavier burden 
which the exogamous class imposes on those who 
submit to it. For where a community is divided 
into two exogamous classes every man is thereby 
forbidden to marry, roughly speaking, one half of 
all the women of the community. In small com- 
munities—and in savage society the community is 
generally small—such a rule must often make it very 
difficult for a man to obtain a wife at all ; accordingly 
there would be a strong temptation to relax the 
burdensome exogamous rule of the class and to retain 
the far easier exogamous rule of the clan. The relief 
afforded by such a relaxation would be immediate, 
and it would be all the greater in proportion to the 
number of the totemic clans. If there were, let us 
say, twenty totemic clans, then, instead of being 
excluded from marriage with ten of them by the 
severe rule of class exogamy, a man would now be 
excluded from marriage with only one of them by 


PROBLEM OF EXOGAMY, A GENERAL SOLUTION 133 


the mild rule of clan exogamy. The temptation thus 
offered to tribes hard put to it for wives must often 
have proved irresistible. It is therefore reasonable 
to suppose that many tribes, besides the Western 
Islanders of Torres Straits, the Iroquois, and the 
Wyandots, have tacitly or formally abolished the 
exogamy of the class, while they satisfied their scruples 
by continuing to observe the exogamy of the clan. 
In doing so they would exchange a heavy for a light 
matrimonial yoke. 

The foregoing considerations suggest that every- 
where the exogamy of the totemic clan may have been 
preceded by exogamy of the class or phratry, even 
where no trace of a two-class system has survived ; 
in short, we may perhaps draw the conclusion that 
exogamy of the totemic clans is always exogamy in 
decay, since the restrictions which it imposes on 
marriage are far less sweeping than the restrictions 
imposed by the exogamy of the classes or phratries. 

But there is another strong and quite independent 
reason for thinking that many tribes which now know 
only the exogamy of the totemic clans formerly 
distributed these totemic clans into two exogamous 
classes. For wherever the system of relationship of a 
totemic people has been ascertained, it has been found 
to be classificatory, not descriptive, in its nature. 
To that rule there appears to be no exception. 
Now the classificatory system of relationship, as we 
shall see presently, follows naturally and necessarily 
as a corollary from the system of group marriage 
created by the distribution of a community into two 
exogamous classes. Hence we may infer with some 
degree of probability that, wherever the classificatory 


1 See below, pp. 153 sgg., 156 sqq- 


134 MAN IN SOCIETY 


system now exists, a two-class system of exogamy 
existed before. If that is so, then exogamy would 
seem everywhere to have originated as in Australia 
through a deliberate bisection of the community into 
two exogamous classes for the purpose of preventing 
the marriage of near kin, especially the marriage of 
brothers with sisters and of mothers with sons. 

An advantage of adopting this as a general 
solution of the whole problem of exogamy is that, 
like the solution of the problem of totemism which 
I have adopted, it enables us to understand how the 
institution is found so widely distributed over the globe 
without obliging us to assume either that it has been 
borrowed by one distant race from another, or that 
it has been transmitted by inheritance from the 
common ancestors of races so diverse and remote 
from each other as the Australian aborigines, the 
Dravidians of India, the negro and Bantu peoples 
of Africa, and the Indians of North America. In- 
stitutions so primitive and so widespread as totemism 
and exogamy are explained more easily and naturally 
by the hypothesis of independent origin in many 
places than by the hypothesis either of borrowing 
or of inheritance from primaeval ancestors. But to 
explain the wide diffusion of any such institution, 
with any appearance of probability, on the hypothesis 
of many separate origins, we must be able to point 
to certain simple general ideas which naturally suggest 
themselves to savage men, and we must be able to 
indicate some easy and obvious way in which these 
ideas might find expression in practice. A theory 
which requires us to assume that a highly complex 
process of evolution has been repeated independently 
by many races in many lands condemns itself at the 


EXOGAMY AND SCIENTIFIC BREEDING 135 


outset. If a custom has sprung up independently in 
a multitude of savage tribes all over the globe, it is 
probable that it has originated in some idea which 
to the savage mind appears very simple and obvious. 
Such a simple idea we have found for totemism in 
the belief that women can be impregnated without 
the aid of the other sex by animals, plants, and other 
material objects, which enter into them and are born 
from them with the nature of the animals, plants, 
or other material objects, though with the illusory 
appearance of human beings. Such a simple idea 
we have found for exogamy in the dislike of the 
cohabitation of brothers with sisters and of mothers 
with sons, and we have seen how this dislike might 
easily find expression in the distribution of a com- 
munity into two exogamous classes with female 
descent, which effectually prevents all such cohabita- 
tions. The hypothesis has at least the merit of 
simplicity which, as I have just said, is indispensable 
to any theory which professes to explain the inde- 
pendent origin in many places of a_ widespread 
institution. 


LVIH 


ANALOGY OF EXOGAMY AND SCIENTIFIC 
BREEDING}! ! 


If we compare the principles of exogamy with the 
principles of scientific breeding we can scarcely fail to 
be struck, as Mr. Walter Heape has pointed out, by the 
curious resemblance, amounting almost to coincidence, 
between the two. 

In the first place, under exogamy the beneficial 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 166-169. 


136 MAN IN SOCIETY 


effects of crossing, which the highest authorities deem 
essential to the welfare and even to the existence of 
species of animals and plants, is secured by the system 
of exogamous classes, either two, four, or eight in 
number, which we have seen every reason to regard as 
artificially instituted for the express purpose of prevent- 
ing the cohabitation of the nearest blood relations. 
Now it is very remarkable that the particular form of 
incest which the oldest form of exogamy, the two-class 
system, specially prevents is the incest of brothers 
with sisters. That system absolutely prevents all 
such incest, while it only partially prevents the incest 
of parents with children, which to the civilized mind 
might seem more shocking on account of the difference 
between the generations, as well as for other reasons. 
Yet this determination of savage man to stop the 
cohabitation of brothers with sisters even before 
stopping the cohabitation of parents .with children is 
in accordance with the soundest biological principles ; 
for it is well recognized both by practical breeders 
and scientific men that the sexual union of brothers 
with sisters is the closest and most injurious form of 
incest, more so than the sexual union of a mother 
with a son or of a father with a daughter. The 
complete prohibition of incest between parents and 
‘children was effected by the second form of exogamy, 
the four-class system. Lastly, the prohibition of 
marriage between all first cousins, about which 
opinion has wavered down to the present time even 
in civilized countries, was only accomplished by the 
third and latest form of exogamy, the eight-class 
system, which was naturally adopted only by 
such tribes as disapproved of these marriages, but 
never by tribes who viewed the union of certain 


EXOGAMY AND SCIENTIFIC BREEDING 137 


first cousins either with indifference or with positive 
approbation. | 

Nor does this exhaust the analogies between exo- 
gamy and scientific breeding. The rule of the de- 
terioration and especially of the infertility of inbred 
animals is subject to a very important exception. 
While the evil can be removed by an infusion of 
fresh blood, it can also be remedied in an entirely 
different way by simply changing the conditions of 
life, especially by sending some animals to a dis- 
tance and then bringing their progeny back to unite 
with members of the family which have remained 
in the old home. Such a form of local exogamy, as 
we may call it, without the introduction of any fresh 
blood, appears to be effective in regenerating the 
stock and restoring its lost fertility. But this system 
of local exogamy, this marriage of members of the 
same race who have lived at a distance from each 
other, is also practised by many savage tribes besides 
or instead of their system of kinship exogamy. It is 
often a rule with them that they must get their wives 
not merely from another stock but from another 
district. For example, the Warramunga tribe of 
Central Australia is divided into two intermarrying 
classes which occupy separate districts, a northern and 
a southern, with the rule that the northern men must 
always marry wives from the southern district, and 
that reciprocally all the southern men must marry 
wives from the northern district. Indeed, there are 
some grounds for conjecturing that the custom of 
locally separating the exogamous classes may have 
been adopted at the very outset for the sake of 
sundering those persons whose sexual union was 
deemed a danger to the community. It might be 


138 MAN IN SOCIETY 


hard to devise a marriage system more in accord- 
ance with sound biological principles. 

Thus exogamy, especially in the form in which it 
is practised by the lowest of existing savages, the 
aborigines of Australia, presents a curious analogy 
to a system of scientific breeding. That the exo- 
gamous system of these primitive people was artificial, 
and that it was deliberately devised by them for the 
purpose which it actually serves, namely the preven- 
tion of the marriage of near kin, seems quite certain ; 
on no other reasonable hypothesis can we explain its 
complex arrangements, so perfectly adapted to the 
wants and the ideas of the natives. Yet it is impossible 
to suppose that in planning it these ignorant and im- 
provident savages could have been animated by exact 
knowledge of its consequences or by a far-seeing care 
for the future welfare of their remote descendants. 
When we reflect how little to this day marriage is 
regulated by any such considerations even among the 
most enlightened classes in the most civilized com- 
munities, we shall not be likely to attribute a far higher 
degree of knowledge, foresight, and self-command to 
the rude founders of exogamy. What idea these 
primitive sages and lawgivers, if we may call them so, 
had in their minds when they laid down the funda- 
mental lines of the institution, we cannot say with 
certainty ; all that we know of savages leads us to 
suppose that it must have been what we should now 
call a superstition, some crude notion of natural causa- 
tion which to us might seem transparently false, 
though to them it doubtless seemed obviously true. 
Yet egregiously wrong as they were in theory, they 
appear to have been fundamentally right in practice. 
What they abhorred was really evil; what they pre- 


THE AVOIDANCE OF NEAR RELATIONS 139 


ferred was really good. Perhaps we may call their 
curious system an unconscious mimicry of science. 
The end which it accomplished was wise, though the 
thoughts of the men who invented it were foolish. 
In acting as they did, these poor savages blindly 
obeyed the impulse of the great evolutionary forces 
which in the physical world are constantly educing 
higher out of lower forms of existence and in the moral 
world civilization out of savagery. If that is so, exo- 
gamy has been an instrument in the hands of that 
unknown power, the masked wizard of history, who 
by some mysterious process, some subtle alchemy, so 
often transmutes in the crucible of suffering the dross 
of folly and evil into the fine gold of wisdom and good. 


LIX 
THE AVOIDANCE OF NEAR RELATIONS? 


In Northern Melanesia, among the natives of 
Central New Ireland, marriage between a mother and 
her son is excluded by the law of class exogamy 
with maternal descent, because mother and son belong 
to the same class and totem. Further, marriage 
between a brother and sister is excluded for the same 
reason, because both belong to the same class and 
totem. Further, marriage between cousins who are 
children of two brothers is excluded, for the same 
reason, because the children are of the same class and 
totem. Further, marriage between cousins who are 
children of two sisters is excluded for the same reason, 
because the children are of the same class and totem. 
But on the other hand the law of class-exogamy does 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol, ii. pp. 130-131; vol. i. p. 503; vol. ii. pp. 76-79. 


140 MAN IN SOCIETY 


not, with maternal descent of the classes, exclude the 
marriage of a father with his daughter, because he and 
she always belong to different classes and totems ; nor 
does it exclude the marriage of cousins who are the 
children of a brother and of a sister respectively, be- 
cause such cousins always belong to different classes 
and totems. Yet both such marriages, though not for- 
bidden by the law of class-exogamy, are most rigidly 
forbidden by custom. The penalty for incest with a 
daughter is death by hanging. Cousins who are the 
children of a brother and a sister respectively not only 
may not marry each other, they may not approach 
each other, they may not shake hands or even touch 
each other, they may not give each other presents, 
they may not mention each other’s names. But they 
are allowed to speak to each other at a distance of some 
paces. 

There can be no doubt that this mutual avoidance 
of cousins who are forbidden by custom, though not 
by the class-law, to marry each other is a precaution 
to prevent the violation of the custom; whether it has — 
been instituted deliberately or grown up instinctively, 
its effect is to raise an artificial barrier between the 
forbidden persons and so far to deliver them from 
temptation. Now similar rules of avoidance are ob- 
served not only between such cousins but also between 
brother and sister, although brother and sister, being 
always of the same class and totem, are forbidden by 
the law of class-exogamy to marry each other. There 
is a mutual shyness or shame between them. They may 
not come near each other, they may not shake hands, 
they may not touch each other, they may not give 
each other presents ; but they are allowed to speak to 
each other at a distance of some paces. The penalty 


THE AVOIDANCE OF NEAR RELATIONS 141 


for incest with a sister, like that for incest with a 
daughter, is death by hanging. We can therefore 
scarcely doubt that the mutual avoidance of brother 
and sister has been either instituted deliberately or 
grown up instinctively as a precaution against incest 
between them; sexual intercourse between a brother 
and sister is apparently viewed as a crime so serious, 
that the ordinary rule of exogamy is not a sufficient 
safeguard against it, but must be reinforced by other 
and stringent measures. In Southern Melanesia, as 
we shall see immediately, the same mutual avoidance 
of brother and sister exists and is to be explained in 
the same way. 


Among the Kurnai of Gippsland, in Australia, 
“the curious custom,” says Dr. Howitt, “‘in accord- 
ance with which the man was prohibited from speaking 
to, or having any communication or dealings with, his 
wife’s mother, is one of extraordinary strength, and 
seems to be rooted deep down in their very nature. 
So far as I know it is of widespread occurrence 
throughout Australia.” Dr. Howitt mentions a 
Kurnai man of his acquaintance, who was a member 
of the Church of England, but who nevertheless 
positively refused to speak to his mother-in-law and 
reproached Dr. Howitt for expecting him to commit 
so gross a breach of good manners. The most 
probable explanation of this singular rule of avoidance 
appears to be the one which Dr. Howitt has suggested, 
namely, that it is intended to prevent the possibility 
of that marriage with a mother-in-law which, while 
it was repugnant to the feelings of the native, was 
yet not barred by the old two-class system with 
maternal descent. This view is not indeed free from 


142 MAN IN SOCIETY 


difficulties, but on the whole it seems open to fewer 
objections than any other explanation that has yet 
been put forward. 

The two-class system with maternal descent, which 
prevails also in Southern Melanesia (the Banks’ 
Islands and the Northern New Hebrides), permits a 
man to marry his mother-in-law, since she necessarily 
belongs to the same exogamous class as his wife ; 
but custom strictly interdicts such marriages. Not 
only does it forbid them to marry, but as usual it also 
forbids them to hold ordinary social intercourse with 
each other. In the Banks’ Islands these rules of 
avoidance and reserve are very strict and minute. A 
man will not come near his wife’s mother, and she will 
not come near him. If the two chance to meet in a 
path, the woman will step out of it and stand with her 
back turned till he has gone by, or perhaps, if it be 
more convenient, he will move out of the way. At 
Vanua Lava, in Port Patteson, a man would not 
even follow his mother-in-law along the beach until 
the rising tide had washed her footprints from the 
sand. ... 

That all such customs of mutual avoidance between 
a man and his wife’s mother originated in an instinct- 
_ive feeling that they ought not to marry each other 
though the class system permitted them to do so, was, 
as we have seen, the view of Dr. A. W. Howitt, 
-and it is by far the most probable explanation of the 
custom that has yet been propounded. So far as the 
people of the Banks’ Islands and the Northern New 
Hebrides are concerned, the theory is confirmed by 
the parallel rules of avoidance which are observed 
among them, on the one hand between a mother 


THE AVOIDANCE OF NEAR RELATIONS 143 


and her sons, and on the other hand between brothers 
and sisters. Thus in Lepers’ Island, one of the New 
Hebrides, when a boy has reached a certain age he 
no longer lives at home, as he had hitherto done, 
but takes up his quarters in the club-house (gama/2), 
where he now regularly eats and sleeps. ‘‘ And 
now begins his strange and strict reserve of inter- 
course with his sisters and his mother. This begins 
in full force towards his sisters; he must not use 
as a common noun the word which is the name 
or makes part of the name of any of them, and they 
avoid his name as carefully. He may goto his father’s 
house to ask for food, but if his sister is within he has 
to go away before he eats; if no sister is there he 
can sit down near the door and eat. If by chance 
brother and sister meet in the path she runs away 
or hides. If a boy on the sands knows that certain 
footsteps are his sister’s, he will not follow them, nor 
will she his. This mutual avoidance begins when the 
boy is clothed or the girl tatooed. The partition be- 
tween boys and girls without which a school cannot be 
carried on is not there to divide the sexes generally, 
but to separate brothers and sisters. This avoidance 
continues through life. The reserve between son and 
mother increases as the boy grows up, and is much 
more on her side than his. He goes to the house and 
asks for food; his mother brings it out but does not 
give it him, she puts it down for him to take; if she 
calls him to come she speaks to him in the plural, in 
a more distant manner; ‘Come ye,’ she says, mzm 
vanat, not ‘Come thou.’ If they talk together she 
sits at a little distance and turns away, for she is shy 
of her grown-up son. The meaning of all this is 
obvious.” 


144 MAN IN SOCIETY 


In fact, as Dr. Codrington here implies, such 
rules of avoidance seem only explicable on the 
hypothesis that they originate in a horror of sexual 
intercourse between a brother and a sister or between 
a mother and her son, a horror which has led 
the people consciously or unconsciously to remove 
as far as possible all temptations to such incest by 
socially dividing brothers from their sisters and 
mothers from their sons. The difference between 
these cases and the avoidance of a man and his mother- 
in-law is that, whereas under the two-class system 
with maternal descent a man and his mother-in-law 
belong to different exogamous classes and are there- 
fore theoretically marriageable, brothers and sisters, | 
mothers and sons belong to the same exogamous 
class and are therefore not even theoretically marriage- 
able to each other. The reason why the custom of 
avoidance is still observed between brothers and sisters, 
mothers and sons, though they are already excluded 
from each other by the rule of class exogamy, may bea 
feeling that incest with a sister or a mother is a crime 
so great that the rule of class exogamy is an insufficient 
safeguard against it, and that it needs to be reinforced 
by other rules or customs which deepen and widen 
the gulf between these near relations. If most peoples, 
both barbarous and civilized, who share the horror 
at such unions, nevertheless place no social obstacles 
between brothers and sisters, between mothers and 
their sons, the reason may be that by inheritance 
through many generations the abstention from incest 
with sisters and mothers has become so habitual and 
instinctive in all normally constituted persons that 
the external barriers which were once placed between 
brothers and sisters, between mothers and sons, have 


THE ORIGIN OF AVERSION TO INCEST UNKNOWN 145 


grown superfluous and so have gradually fallen away 
of themselves. The widespread custom of lodging 
the young unmarried men in houses apart from their 
families may have been one of these artificial barriers ; 
it may have been adopted for the purpose of preventing 
a dangerous intimacy between the youths and their 
mothers and sisters. At least the Melanesian practice 
described by Dr. Codrington points in this direction ; 
for the marked avoidance of a youth by his mother 
and sisters begins just at the time when he becomes 
sexually dangerous, and when, therefore, he is banished 
from the home to sleep with other males in the public 
club-house. Such club-houses, where the unmarried 
men lodge away from their families, are common in 
New Guinea, Melanesia, and other parts of the 
world. 


LX 


THE ORIGIN OF AVERSION TO INCEST 
UNKNOWN 1? 


It appears highly probable that the aversion 
which most civilized races have entertained to incest 
or the marriage of near kin has been derived by them 
through a long series of ages from their savage 
ancestors; for there is no evidence or probability 
that the aversion is a thing of recent growth, a product 
of advanced civilization. Even, therefore, though 
the primitive forefathers of the Semites and the 
Aryans may have known nothing either of totemism 
or of exogamy, we may with some confidence assume 
that they disapproved of incest, and that their dis- 
approbation has been inherited by their descendants 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 153-155. 
L 


146 MAN IN SOCIETY 


to this day. Thus the abhorrenée of incest, which 
is the essence of exogamy, goes back in the history 
of mankind to a period of very rude savagery ; and 
we may fairly suppose that, whether it has been 
embodied in a system of exogamy or not, it has 
everywhere originated in the same primitive modes 
of thought and feeling. What, then, are the primitive 
modes of thought and feeling which gave rise to the 
abhorrence of incest? Why, in other words, did 
rude and ignorant savages come to regard with strong 
disapprobation the cohabitation of brothers with 
sisters and of parents with children ? We do not know 
and it is difficult even to guess. None of the answers 
yet given to these questions appears to be satisfactory. 
It cannot have been that primitive savages forbade 
incest because they perceived it to be injurious to 
the offspring ; for down to our own time the opinions 
of scientific men have differed on the question whether 
the closest inbreeding, in other words, the highest 
degree of incest, is injurious or not to the progeny. 
“The evil results from close interbreeding,’ says 
Darwin, “are difficult to detect, for they accumulate 
slowly, and differ much in degree with different 
species, whilst the good effects which almost invariably 
follow a cross are from the first manifest’; and it 
may be added that the evil effects of inbreeding, if 
they exist, are necessarily more difficult to detect 
in man than in most other species of animals because 
mankind breeds so slowly. With quick-breeding 
animals like fowls, where the generations follow each 
other in rapid succession, it is possible to observe 
the good or ill effects of inbreeding and outbreeding 
in a short time. But with the human race, even if 
we were perfectly free to make experiments in breeding, 


” 


| 


THE ORIGIN OF AVERSION TO INCEST UNKNOWN 147 


many years would necessarily elapse before the effect 
of these experiments would be clearly manifested. 
Accordingly we cannot suppose that any harmful 
consequences of inbreeding have been observed by 
savages and have provided them with the motive 
for instituting exogamy. All that we know of the 
ignorance and improvidence of savages confirms the 
observation of Darwin that they “are not likely to 
reflect on distant evils to their progeny”’. Indeed, 
the improbability that primitive man should have 
regulated the relations of the sexes by elaborate rules 
intended to avert the evil effects of inbreeding on the 
offspring has been greatly increased, since Darwin 
wrote, by the remarkable discovery that some of the 
most primitive of existing races, who observe the 
strictest of all systems of exogamy, are entirely 
‘ignorant of the causal relation which exists between 
the intercourse of the sexes and the birth of offspring. 
The ignorance which thus characterizes these back- 
ward tribes was no doubt at one time universal 
amongst mankind and must have been shared by 
the savage founders of exogamy. But if they did 
not know that children are the fruit of marriage, it 
is difficult to see how they could have instituted an 
elaborate system of marriage for the express purpose 
of benefiting the children. In short, the idea that 
the abhorrence of incest originally sprang from an 
observation of its injurious effects on the offspring 
may safely be dismissed as baseless. 


148 MAN IN SOCIETY 


LXI 


A CONJECTURE AS TO THE ORIGIN OF THE 
AVERSION TO INCEST? 


But if the founders of exogamy did not believe 
that the cohabitation of the nearest blood relations is 
detrimental to the progeny, can they have believed 
that it is detrimental to the parents themselves; in 
other words, can they have thought that the mere act 
of sexual intercourse with a near relative is in itself, 
quite apart from any social consequences or moral 
sentiments, physically injurious to one or both of the 
actors? I formerly thought that this may have been 
so and was accordingly inclined to look for the ulti- 
mate origin of exogamy or the prohibition of incest 
in a superstition of this sort, a baseless fear that incest 
was of itself injurious to the incestuous couple. But 
there are serious and indeed, as it now seems to me, 
conclusive objections to this view. For in the first 
place there is very little evidence that savages con- 
ceive the sexual intercourse of near kin to be harmful 
to the persons who engage in it.2, Had the dread of 
harm caused by incestuous unions to the parties them- 
selves been the origin of exogamy, it seems probable 
that the dread would have been peculiarly deep and 


1893), pp. 20 sg.; A. van Gennep, 
Tabou et Totemisme a Madagascar 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. 


pp. 155-160. 
Maas 


2 Indeed, certain peoples, who nor- 
mally forbid incest, actually enjoin 
incest with a sister or a daughter as a 
meansof obtaining good luck in certain 
undertakings, such as hunting, fishing, 
and war. See Gabriel Ferrand, Zes 
Musulmans a Madagascar et aux Lles 
Comores, Deuxicme Partie (Paris, 


(Paris, 1904), pp. 342 sg.; 
Junod, Zhe Life of a South African 
Tribe (Neuchatel, 1912-1913), ii. 60; 
E. W. Smith and A. M. Dale, Zhe 
Lla-speaking Peoples of Northern 
Rhodesia (London, 1920), i. 261, ii. 


83 59. 


ORIGIN OF THE AVERSION TO INCEST 149 


general among the Australian aborigines, who of all 
mankind practise exogamy in its most rigid forms. 
Yet so far as I know these savages are not said to be 
actuated by any such fear in observing their complex 
exogamous rules. 

But the mere general want of evidence is not the 
most conclusive argument against the theory in ques- 
tion; for unfortunately the records which we possess 
of savage life-are so imperfect that it is never safe to 
argue from the silence of the record, to the absence of 
the thing. In short, mere negative evidence, always 
a broken reed, is perhaps nowhere so broken and 
treacherous a prop for an argument as in anthropology. 
Conclusions laid down with confidence one day on the 
strength of a mere negation may be upset the next 
day by the discovery of a single positive fact. Accord- 
ingly it is perfectly possible that a belief in the injurious 
effects of incest on the persons who engage in it may 
in fact be common among savages, though at present 
very few cases of it have been reported. A more 
formidable objection to the theory which would base 
exogamy on such a belief is drawn from the extreme 
severity with which in most exogamous tribes breaches: 
of exogamy have been punished by the community. 
The usual penalty for such offences is death inflicted 
on both the culprits. Now if people had thought that 
incest injured the incestuous persons themselves and 
nobody else, society might well have been content to 
leave the sinners to suffer the natural and inevitable 
consequences of their sin. Why should it step in and 
say, “ You have hurt yourselves, therefore we will 
put you to death’? It may be laid down as an axiom 
applicable to all states of society that society only 
punishes social offences, that is, offences which are 


150 MAN IN SOCIETY 


believed to be injurious, not necessarily to the in- 
dividual offenders, but to the community at large ; 
and the severer the punishment meted out to them, 
the deeper the injury they must be supposed to inflict 
on the commonwealth. But society cannot inflict 
any penalty heavier than death; therefore capital 
crimes must be those which are thought to be most 
dangerous and detrimental to the whole body of the 
people. From this it follows that in commonly 
punishing breaches of exogamy, or, in short, incest, 
with death, exogamous tribes must be of opinion that 
the offence is a most serious injury to the whole 
community. Only thus can we reasonably explain 
the horror which incest usually excites among them 
and the extreme rigour with which they visit it even 
to the extermination of the culprits. 

What then can be the great social wrong which 
was supposed to result from incest? how were the 
guilty persons believed to endanger the whole tribe 
by their crime? A possible answer is that the inter- 
course of near kin was thought to render the women of 
the tribe sterile and to endanger the common food- 
supply by preventing edible animals from multiplying 
and edible plants from growing; in short, that the 
effect of incest was supposed to be sterility of women, 
animals, and plants. Such beliefs appear in point of 
fact to have been held by many races in different parts 
of the world. The idea that sexual crime in general 
and incest in particular blights the crops is common 
among peoples of the Malayan stock in the Indian 
Archipelago and their kinsfolk in Indo-China; but 
it is also strongly held by some natives of West 
Africa, and there are grounds for thinking that similar 
notions as to the injurious effect of incest on women 


—. = owe Se hee 


. 
; 
; 
| 


ORIGIN OF THE AVERSION TO INCEST ISI 


‘and cattle as well as on the corn prevailed among the 


primitive Semites and the primitive Aryans, including 
the ancient Greeks, the ancient Latins, and the ancient 
Irish. The evidence has been collected by me else- 
where. Now, if any such beliefs were entertained by 
the founders of exogamy, they would clearly have 
been perfectly sufficient motives for instituting the 
system, for they would perfectly explain the horror 
with which incest has been regarded and the extreme 
severity with which it has been punished. You cannot 
do men a deeper injury than by preventing their 
women from bearing children and by stopping their 
supply of food; for by doing the first you hinder 
them from propagating their kind, and by doing the 
second you menace them with death. The most 
serious dangers, therefore, which threaten any com- 
munity are that its women should bear no children 
and that it should have nothing to eat; and crimes 
which imperil the production of children and the 
supply of food deserve to be punished by any society 
which values its existence with the utmost rigour 
of the law. If therefore the savages who devised 
exogamy really supposed that incest prevented women 
from bearing children, animals from multiplying, and 
plants from growing, they were perfectly justified 
from their point of view in taking the elaborate pre- 
cautions which they did take to prevent sexual unions 
which, in their opinion, struck such deadly blows at 
the life of the community. 

But was this really their belief ? The only serious 
difficulty in the way of supposing that it was so, is the 
absence of evidence that such notions are held by the 
most primitive exogamous peoples, the Australian 


1 Psyche’s Task,* pp. 44-75. 


Biz. MAN IN SOCIETY 


aborigines, amongst whom we should certainly expect 
to find them if they had indeed been the origin of 
exogamy. Further, it is to be observed that all 
the peoples who are known to hold the beliefs in 
question appear to be agricultural, and what they 
especially dread is the sterilizing effect of incest on 
their crops; they are not so often said to fear its 
sterilizing effect on women and cattle, though this 
may be partly explained by the simple circumstance 
that some of these races do not keep cattle. But the 
savage founders of exogamy, if we may judge by the 
Australian aborigines of to-day, were certainly not 
agricultural; they did not even know that seed put 
in the ground will germinate and grow. Thus the 
known distribution of the beliefs as to the sterilizing 
effect of incest on women, animals, and the crops, 
suggests that it is a product of a culture somewhat 
more advanced than can be ascribed to the savages 
who started exogamy. In fact, it might be argued 
that all such notions as to the injurious natural con- 
sequences of incest are an effect rather than the cause 
of its prohibition; that is, the peoples in question 
may first have banned the marriage of near kin for 
some reasons unknown and may afterwards have 
become so habituated to the observance of the incest 
law that they regarded infractions of it as breaches 
of what we should call natural law and therefore as 
calculated to disturb the course of nature. In short, 
it is possible that this superstition is rather late than 
early, and that therefore it cannot be the root of 
exogamy. 

On the other hand it must be borne in mind that 
the chief consideration which tells against assuming 
such a superstition to be the origin of exogamy is 


Spe iy oe Cees re ok) Nats eR es, 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP 153 


the purely negative one that no such superstition has 
yet, so far as I know, been found among the Australian 
aborigines, amongst whom on this theory it might be 
expected to flourish. But I have already pointed out 
the danger of relying on merely negative evidence ; 
and considering everything as carefully as I can I 
incline, though with great hesitancy and reserve, to 
think that exogamy may have sprung from a belief 
in the injurious and especially the sterilizing effects of 
incest, not upon the persons who engage in it, at least 
not upon the man, nor upon the offspring, but upon 
women generally and particularly upon edible animals 
and plants; and I venture to conjecture that a careful 
search among the most primitive exogamous peoples 
now surviving, especially among the Australian abori- 
gines, might still reveal the existence of such a belief 
among them. At least if that is not the origin of 
exogamy, I must confess to being completely baffled, 
for I have no other conjecture to offer on the subject. 


LXII 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF 
RELATIONSHIP} 


The researches of the American ethnologist L. H. 
Morgan and others within the last sixty or seventy 
years have proved that like savages in many, if not all, 
parts of the world the Australian aborigines count kin 
according to what is called the classificatory system of 
relationship. The fundamental principle of that system 
is that kinship is reckoned between groups rather than 
between individuals; for example, under it a man 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 286-288. 


* |. * ee oe bay” 


154 MAN IN SOCIETY 


gives the name of father not to one individual man 
only but to a group of men, any one of whom might, 
in accordance with the tribal custom, have been his 
father ; he gives the name of mother not to one in- 
dividual woman only but to a group of women, any one 
of whom might, in accordance with the tribal custom, 
have been his mother ; he gives the name of brother 
and sister, not only to the children of his father and 
mother, but to a group of men and women who are 
the offspring of all those women and men whom his 
father and mother might, in accordance with the 
tribal custom, have married; he gives the name of 
wife not only to his actual wife but to all the women 
whom the custom of the tribe would have allowed him 
to marry ; and he gives the name of sons and daughters 
not only to children whom he has himself begotten but 
- also to all the children of those women whom he might 
have married but did not. Strange as this system of 
group relationship seems to us, it is actually prevalent 
at the present day over a great part, probably the 
greater part of the world ; and it is only explicable, as 
we shall see presently, on the hypothesis that it sprang 
from, and accurately represents, a system of group 
marriage, that is, a system in which a group of men 
enjoyed marital rights over a group of women, so that 
any man of the one group might call any woman of the 
other group his wife and treat her as such; while 
every child born of such group marriages gave the 
name of father to every one of the whole group of men 
to which his actual father belonged, and the name of 
mother to every one of the whole group of women 
to which his actual mother belonged. Such titles 
would not by any means imply a belief that the speaker 
had been begotten by all the men of his father’s group 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM OF RELATIONSHIP 155 


or borne by all the women of his mother’s group. It 
would mean no more than that he stood in a similar 
social, not physical, relationship to all the men and 
women of these groups. It would mean that the 
duties which he owed to them and the rights which he 
claimed from them were the same in respect of every 
member of the group, and were neither greater nor 
less in respect of his physical father and mother than 
in respect of all the other men and women on whom he 
bestowed the names of father and mother. In short, 
under this system paternity and maternity, brother- 
hood and sisterhood, sonship and daughtership desig- 
nated social not consanguineous relationships, the tie of 
blood being either ignored or at all events cast into the 
background by the greater importance of the tie which 
bound all the members of the groups together. It was, 
to all appearance, a period not of individualism but of 
social communism ; and when we remember how feeble 
each individual man is by comparison with the larger 
animals, we may be ready to admit that in his early 


struggles with them for the mastery a system which 


knit large groups of men and women together by the 
closest ties was more favourable to progress than one 
which would have limited the family group to a single 
pair and their offspring. Then, perhaps even more 
than now, union was strength: disunion and dis- 
persal would have exposed our ancestors to the risk 
of being exterminated piecemeal by their ferocious 
and individually far stronger adversaries, the large 
carnivorous animals. : 


156 MAN IN SOCIETY 


LXIII 


ORIGIN OF THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 
IN GROUP MARRIAGE}? 


A survey of the cardinal terms of relationship in 
the central and northern tribes of Australia suffices 
to prove their classificatory nature. They are terms 
which designate relationships between groups, not 
between individuals. Each individual is classed as 
the son or daughter of many fathers and of many 
mothers: he or she classes as brothers and sisters 
many men and women who on our system are no 
relations at all to him or her: every man classes many 
women as his wives besides the one to whom he is 
actually married: every woman classes many men 
as her husbands besides the one to whom she is 
actually married: every man and every woman class 
as their children many boys and girls whom they 
neither begat nor bare. Thus the whole population 
is distributed into groups, and the system of kinship 
consists of the relations of these groups to each other. 
The only reasonable and probable explanation of 
such a system of group relationships is that it originated 
in a system of group marriage, that is, in a state of 
society in which groups of men exercised marital 
rights over groups of women, and the limitation of 
one wife to one husband was unknown. Such a 
system of group marriage would explain very simply 
why every man gives the name of wife to a whole 
group of women, and every woman gives the name 
of husband to a whole group of men, with only one 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 303-305 


ORIGIN OF THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM bs7 


or even with none of whom he or she need have 
marital relations; why every man and every woman 
apply the names of father and mother to whole groups 
of men and women of whom it is physically impossible 
that more than two individuals can be their parents ; 
why every man and every woman apply the names of 
brother and sister to whole groups of men and women 
with whom they need not have a drop of blood in 
common; and why, finally, every man and every 
woman claim as their sons and daughters whole 
groups of men and women whom they neither begat 
nor bare. In short, group marriage explains group 
relationship, and it is hard to see what else can do so. 

Apart from the reluctance which some people feel 
to admit that a large part or the whole of mankind 
‘ has passed through a stage of social evolution in 
which individual marriage was unknown, the only 
serious obstacle to the acceptance of this simple and 
adequate explanation of the classificatory system is 
the difficulty of understanding how a person should 
ever come to be treated as the child of many mothers. 
This difficulty only exists so long as we confuse our 
word ‘“ mother ”’ with the corresponding but by no 
means equivalent terms in the languages of savages 
who have the classificatory system. We mean by 
“mother ”? a woman who has given birth to a child ; 
the Australian savages mean by “ mother’ a woman 
who stands in a certain social relation to a group of 
men and women, whether she has given birth to any 
one of them or not. She is “ mother ”’ to that group 
even when she is an infant in arms. A grown man 
has been seen playing with a small girl whom he called 
quite seriously and, according to his system of relation- 
ship, quite rightly his ‘‘ mother’’. But he was not 


158 MAN IN SOCIETY 


such a fool as to imagine that the child had given 
birth to him. He was merely using the term ‘‘ mother ”’ 
in the Australian, not the English,. sense; and if 
we will only clear our minds of the confusion created 
by the common verbal fallacy of employing the same 
word in two different senses, the imaginary difficulty 
about one man and many mothers will cease to block 
the straight road to the understanding of the classifi- 
catory system of relationship. It is not even necessary 
to suppose that, as Dr. Rivers has suggested, the 
blood tie between a mother and her offspring may, 
under a system of group marriage, have been forgotten 
in later life, so that adults would be as uncertain about 
their mothers as they were about their fathers. The 
true relation between mother and child may always 
have been remembered, but it was an accident which 
did not in any way affect the mother’s place in the 
classificatory system ; for she was classed with a group 
of “‘ mothers ”’ just as much before as after her child 
was born. Similarly a man is classed with a group 
of “fathers ’’ when he is a toddling infant just as 
much as when he has begotten a large family. The 
classificatory system is based on the marital, not 
on the parental, relation. It is founded on the 
division of the community into two intermarrying 
groups. From that simple and primary grouping all 
the other groups and all the group relationships of the 
system appear to be derived. 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 159 


LXIV 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM AND THE 
DUAL ORGANIZATION } 


If the reader will take the trouble to compare 
the relationships of men and women, which I| have 
theoretically deduced from a simple exogamous 
bisection of the community,? with the relationships 
actually recognized by the classificatory system, he 
will at once perceive their substantial agreement, 
though for the sake of simplicity and clearness I have 
refrained from following the system through its more 
remote ramifications in the fourth and fifth generations. 
The agreement should convince him that the classi- 
ficatory system of relationship has in fact: resulted 
from a simple bisection of the community into two 
exogamous classes and from nothing else. It should 
be particularly observed that the two-class system of 
exogamy or dual organization, as it is often called, 
suffices of itself to create the classificatory system of 
relationship, which appears not to have been materially 
affected by the subsequent adoption of the four-class 
and eight-class systems in certain tribes. This 
observation is important, because, while the classifi- 
catory system of relationship is found to be diffused 
over a great part of the world, the four-class and 
eight-class systems have hitherto been detected tn 
Australia alone. In the absence of evidence to the 
contrary we accordingly infer that the successive 
bisections of the two-class system into four and eight 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 123-124. 
* See Zotemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 122-123. 


160 MAN IN SOCIETY 


classes have been inventions of the Australian intellect 
alone, and that the existence of the classificatory 
system in other races of men raises no presumption 
that these races have ever practised exogamy in 
any more complex form than the simple two-class 
system. 

Thus with the institution of two exogamous classes 
and the resulting system of group marriage the 
classificatory system of relationship springs up of 
itself ; it simply defines the relations of all the men - 
and women of the community to each other according 
to the generation and the exogamous class to which 
they belong. The seemingly complex system of 
relationship, like the seemingly complex system of 
exogamy on which it is based, turns out to be simple 
enough when we view it from its starting-point in the 
bisection of a community into two exogamous classes. 


LXV 


GROUP MARRIAGE AND GROUP 
RELATIONSHIP}? 


The relations constituted by the rights of groups 
of men over groups of women are expressed and, as 
it were, crystallized in the system of group relation- 
ship, commonly known as the classificatory system, 
which has survived in many parts of the world long 
after the system of group marriage has disappeared. 
The system of group relationship may be compared 
to a cast taken of the living system of group marriage : 
that cast represents the original in all the minute 
details of its organic structure, and continues to 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. ii. pp. 230-232. 


GROUP MARRIAGE AND GROUP RELATIONSHIP 161 


record it for the instruction of posterity long after the 
organism itself is dead and mouldered into dust. In 
Central Australia the system of group marriage 
persisted, along with the system of group relationship, 
down to our own time; and it is perhaps the only 
part of the world where the original and the cast 
have been found together, the one still superposed, 
as it were, on the other and fitting it to some extent, 
though not with perfect exactness; for even here the 
living system of group marriage had shrunk and was 
probably wasting away. 

From a study of the Australian tribes, which have 
preserved both the cast and something of the original, 
in other words, both the system of group relationship 
and the system of group marriage, more perfectly 
than any other known race of men, we can define 
with some approach to exactness the nature and extent 
of the intermarrying groups on which the terms of 
group relationship were modelled. Among the 
Australian aborigines, these intermarrying groups are 
regularly two, four, or eight in number, according to 
the tribe ; for some tribes have two such exogamous 
groups, others have four, and others again have eight. 
Where the system is in full working order and has not 
fallen into obvious decay, the number of the exogamous 
classes is invariably two or a multiple of two, never 
an odd number. This suggests, what all the evidence 
tends to confirm, that these various groups have been 
produced by the deliberate and repeated bisection of a 
community, first into two, then into four, and finally 
into eight exogamous and intermarrying groups or 
classes ; for no one, so far as I know, has yet ventured 
to maintain that society is subject to a physical law, 
in virtue of which communities, like crystals, tend 

M 


162 MAN IN SOCIETY 


automatically and unconsciously to integrate or dis- 
integrate, along rigid mathematical lines, into exactly 
symmetrical units. The effect of these successive 
dichotomies is of course to limit more and more the 
number of women with whom a man may lawfully 
have sexual relations. By the division of the com- 
munity into two groups or classes, he is restricted, 
in his choice, roughly speaking, to one half of the 
women ; by the division into four he is restricted to 
one fourth of the women; and by the division into 
eight he is restricted to one eighth. It is not of course 
implied that a man has now, or indeed ever had, 
sexual relations with all the women of the group into 
which he is allowed to marry; but he calls all these 
women his wives, and while he now regularly has one 
or more women with whom he cohabits to the practical 
exclusion of others, it seems probable that this limita- 
tion has resulted from the same gradual shrinkage of 
the intermarrying groups which appears most con- 
spicuously in the successive divisions of the community 
into two, four, and eight intermarrying classes. To 
put it otherwise, we may suppose that formerly the - 
sexual relations between groups of men and women 
were much looser than they are now, that in fact men 
of one group much oftener exercised those marital 
rights over the women of the corresponding group 
which in theory they still possess, though practically 
they have to a great extent allowed them to fall into 
abeyance. 


._ 


DOE ie bly ear 


=e ~- a eee a ee 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 163 


LXVI 


THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM A LANDMARK 
IN HISTORY! 


The classificatory system of relationship forms one 
of the great landmarks in the history of mankind. 
The distinction between the classificatory and the 
descriptive systems of relationship, or, as I should 
prefer to put it, the distinction between the system 
of group relationship and the system of individual 
relationship, coincides, broadly speaking, with the 
distinction between savagery and civilization; the 
boundary between the lower and the higher strata of 
humanity runs approximately on the line between 
the two different modes of counting kin, the one 
mode counting it by groups, the other by individuals. 
Reduced to its most general terms, the line of cleavage 
is between collectivism and individualism: savagery 


stands on the side of collectivism, civilization stands 


on the side of individualism. 


LXVII 
THE LEVIRATE AND THE SORORATE? 


There are two customs of wide prevalence through- 
out the world which separately and in conjunction 
may perhaps be explained on the hypothesis that they 
are relics of group marriage and in particular of that 
form of group marriage which L. H. Morgan called 
the punaluan, to wit, the union of a group of husbands 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. ii. p. 227. 
2 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 139-140. 


164 MAN IN SOCIETY 


who are brothers with a group of wives who are 
sisters. The first of these customs is the world-wide 
rule which allows or requires a man to marry the 
widow of his deceased elder brother; the other is 
the rule which allows or requires a man to marry the 
younger sisters either of his living or of his deceased 
wife. Or, to put the same customs from the point of 
view of the woman, we may say that the former 
custom allows or requires her to marry her deceased 
husband’s brother, and that the latter custom allows 
or requires her to marry the husband either of her 
living or of her deceased sister. The former custom 
has long been known under the name of the /evirate, 
from the Latin /evzr, “a husband’s brother”; the 
latter custom, which has received very little attention, 
has no distinctive name, but on analogy I propose to 
call it the sovorate, from the Latin sovor, ‘‘a sister’. 

The two customs are in fact correlative; they 
present in all probability two sides of one original 
custom, and it is convenient to give them correspond- 
ing names. 


LXVIII 
THE LEVIRATE AND GROUP MARRIAGE}! 


The custom of marrying a deceased brother's 
widow is known as the levirate. It occurs in many, 
though not in all, Australian tribes, and it has been 
practised by many other peoples in many other parts 
of the world. The custom is probably to be explained 
with Dr. Howitt, at least for Australia, as a relic of 
group marriage: the brothers, who under that system 
would have shared their wives in their lifetime, after- 


+ Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 501-502. 


THE LEVIRATE AND GROUP MARRIAGE 165 


wards inherited them successively, each stepping one 
after the other into the shoes of his deceased prede- 
cessor. The eminent anthropologist, J. F. McLennan, 
indeed, proposed to explain the levitate as a relic of 
polyandry, not of group marriage. But against this 
view it is to be said that group marriage is found in 
Australia, whereas polyandry is not ; so that the cause 
presupposed by Howitt actually exists in the region 
where the custom is practised, while the cause pre- 
supposed by McLennan does not. Further, it should 
be borne in mind, that whereas both the levirate and 
the classificatory system of relationship, with its plain 
testimony to group marriage, occur very widely over 
the world, the custom of polyandry appears to have 
been comparatively rare and exceptional, and the 
reason for its rarity is simply that the only basis on 
which polyandry could permanently exist, to wit, a 
great numerical preponderance of men over women, 
appears never to have been a normal condition with 
any race of men of whom we have knowledge. In 
Africa, for example, as in Australia, the custom of the 
levirate is very common and the classificatory system 
of relationship seems to be widely spread, but the 
custom of polyandry is apparently extremely rare: 
indeed, so far as I know, it is reported only of a single 
African tribe, the Bahima or Banyankole of Uganda.' 
It is more reasonable, therefore, to look for the origin 
of the widely diffused custom of the levirate in a custom 
like group marriage, which we have good reason for 
believing to have been at one time very widely diffused, 
rather than in a custom like polyandry, for which no 
such evidence is forthcoming. 


1 See J. Roscoe, The Northern Bantu (Cambridge, 1915), p. 121; t@., The 
Banyankole (Cambridge, 1923), p. 123. . 


166 MAN IN SOCIETY 


But when the levirate survived, as it often did, 
among peoples who had left group marriage far 
behind them, it would naturally assume a different char- 
acter with its changed surroundings. Thus, wherever 
the rights of property and the practice of purchasing 
wives had become firmly established, the tendency 
was to regard the widow as part of the inheritance 
which passed to the heir, whether he was a brother, a 
son, or any other relation of the deceased husband. 
This, for example, appears to be the current view of 
the levirate in Africa, where the custom is commonly 
observed. Again, wherever it came to be supposed 
that a man’s eternal welfare in the other world depends 
on his leaving children behind him, who will perform 
the rites necessary for his soul’s salvation, it naturally 
became the pious duty of the survivors to remedy as 
far as they could the parlous state of a kinsman who 
had died childless, and on none would that duty 
appear to be more incumbent than on the brother of 
the deceased. In such circumstances the old custom 
of the levirate might be continued, or perhaps re- 
vived, with the limitation which we find in Hebrew 
and Hindoo law, namely that a brother must marry 
his brother’s widow only in the case where,the de- 
ceased died childless, and only for the purpose of 
begetting on the widow a son or sons for him who had 
left none of his own. Thus what had once been 
regarded as a right of succession to be enjoyed by the 
heir might afterwards come to be viewed as a burden- 
some and even repulsive obligation imposed upon a 
surviving brother or other kinsman, who submitted - 
to it reluctantly out of a sense of duty to the dead. 
This is the light in which the levirate has been 
considered by Hindoo lawgivers. 


THE LEVIRATE AND THE SORORATE 167 


LXIX 


THE LEVIRATE AND THE SORORATE AS 
RELICS OF GROUP MARRIAGE}! 


The rule that when a man marries a woman he 
has a right to marry her sisters also is widespread, 
notably among the Indians of North America. It 
is clearly the converse of the rule which assigns a 
man’s widows to his brothers, and as the latter rule 
points to the marriage of women to a group of brothers, 
so the former rule points to the marriage of men to 
a group of sisters. Taken together, the two customs 
seem to indicate the former prevalence of marriage 
between a group of husbands who were brothers 
to each other and a group of wives who were sisters 
to each other. In practice the custom which permits 
a man to marry several sisters has diverged in an 
important respect from the custom which permits 
a woman to marry several brothers; for whereas the 
permission granted to a man to marry several sisters 
simultaneously in their lifetime has survived in many 
races to this day, the permission granted to a woman 
to marry several brothers has generally been restricted 
by the provision that she may only marry them 
successively, each after the death of his predecessor. 
We may conjecture that the cause of the divergence 
between the two customs was the greater strength of 
the passion of jealousy in men than in women, sisters 
being more willing to share a husband between them 
than brothers to share a wife. 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. ii. p. 144. 


168 MAN IN SOCIETY 


LXX 


THE BARTER OF SISTERS AS A SOURCE 
OF GROUP MARRIAGE}? 


If we ask what was the origin of a form of group 
marriage which would seem to have prevailed so 
widely, we may conjecture that it rested on a system 
of exchange like that which appears to lie at the root 
of the cross-cousin marriage.2. As a matter of fact, 
mén commonly exchange their sisters in marriage, 
because that is the easiest and cheapest way of obtain- 
ing a wife. For similar reasons in a society where 
group marriage was in vogue, it would be natural for 
a group of brothers to exchange their sisters for the 
sisters of another group of brothers, each set of men 
thereafter using the sisters of the other set of men as 
their common wives. In this way, on the simple 
principle of bartering women between families, a 
system of group marriage might easily arise in which 
all the husbands of each group were brothers and all 
the wives of each group were sisters to each other, 
though not to their husbands. 

Thus, if I am right, the sororate and the levirate 
are offshoots from one common root, a system of group 
marriage in which all the husbands were brothers 
and all the wives were sisters to each other, though 
not to their husbands; and that system in its turn 
originated in a simple desire to get wives as easily 
and cheaply as possible. 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. ii. p. 317. 
2 As to cross-cousin marriage see below, pp. 172 s¢q- 


_ 


—- 


EXOGAMY AND THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 169 


LXXI 


EXOGAMY AND THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 
NOT NECESSARILY UNIVERSAL STAGES IN 
_ THE PROGRESS OF HUMANITY! 


Thus it appears to bea reasonable hypothesis that at 
least a large part of mankind has passed through the 
stage of group marriage in its progress upward from 
a still lower stage of sexual promiscuity to a higher 
stage of monogamy. Apart from the customs of 
the levirate and the sororate and the traces of a 
wider freedom formerly accorded to the sexes in their 
relations with each other, the two great landmarks of 
group marriage are exogamy and the classificatory 
system of relationship, which, as I have attempted to 
show, are inseparably united and must stand or fall 
together as evidence of an ancient system of communal 
marriage. 

But exogamy and the classificatory system of rela- 
tionship are, roughly speaking, confined to the lower 
races of mankind: they form a clear and trenchant 
line between savagery and civilization. Almost the 
only civilized race which, so to say, stands astride 
this great border-line are the Aryan Hindoos, who 
possess the system of exogamy without the classi- 
ficatory system of relationship. Whether they have 
inherited exogamy from the common ancestors of the | 
whole Aryan family or have borrowed it from the 
dark-skinned aborigines of India, with whom they 
have been in contact for thousands of years, is a 
question of the highest interest not merely for the 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. pp. 151-153. 


170 MAN IN SOCIETY 


history of the Aryans in particular, but for the history 
of human marriage in general; since if it could be 
made probable that the whole Aryan family had once 
passed through the stage of exogamy, with its natural 
accompaniment the classificatory system of relation- 
ship, it would become difficult to resist the conclusion 
that exogamy, with all its implications of group 
marriage and a preceding custom of sexual promis- 
cuity, had once been universal among mankind. But 
in the absence of proof that the Semites and the 
Aryans in general ever practised exogamy and counted 
kinship on the classificatory system we are not justified 
in concluding that these institutions have at one time 
been common to the whole human race. Nor, apart 
from the want of direct evidence, does there appear to 
be any reason in the nature of things why these in- 
stitutions should be necessary stages in the social 
evolution of every people. The object of exogamy, 
as I have attempted to show, was to prevent the 
marriage of near kin, especially the marriage of 
brothers with sisters and of mothers with sons; and 
it seems perfectly possible that some peoples may have 
achieved this object directly by a simple prohibition 
of consanguineous marriages without resorting to that 
expedient of dividing the whole community into 
two intermarrying classes, from which the vast and 
cumbrous system of exogamy and the classificatory 
relationships grew by a logical development. The 
history of exogamy is the history first of a growing 
and afterwards of a decaying scrupulosity as to the 
marriage of near kin. With every fresh scruple a fresh 
bar was erected between the sexes, till the barriers reach 
their greatest known height in the eight-class system of 
the Australian aborigines, which practically shuts the 


EXOGAMY AND THE CLASSIFICATORY SYSTEM 171 


door for every man upon seven-eighths of the women of 
the community. Whether any tribes ever carried their 
scruples still farther and reduced within even narrower 
limits the number of a man’s possible wives is not 
known ; and if there ever were such tribes they 
probably perished either from the mere difficulty of 
propagating their kind under these too elaborate restric- 
tions, or because their ever-dwindling numbers could 
not resist the pressure of less scrupulous and faster- 
breeding neighbours. Having reached its culminating 
point in bloated systems of eight classes and the like, 
exogamy begins to decline. The exogamy of the 
classes was the first to go, leaving behind it the far 
less extensive and therefore far less burdensome 
exogamy of the clans, whether totemic or otherwise. 
It is in this greatly shrunken form, shorn of its original 
classes, that the institution is still found in the great 
majority of exogamous peoples outside of Australia. 
The last stage of decay is reached when the exogamy 
of the clan breaks down also, and henceforth marriage 
is regulated by the prohibited degrees alone. 

Now it is quite possible that the great civilized 
families of mankind, who now regulate marriage only 
by the prohibited degrees of kinship, have run through 
this course of social development and decay in the 
remote past. They may at one time in their history, © 


‘not necessarily the earliest, have practised sexual 


promiscuity, have felt a growing aversion to the 
marriage of near kin, have embodied that aversion in 
a system of exogamy, and finally, discarding that 
system with its exaggerations, have reverted to a 
simple prohibition of the marriage of persons closely 
related by blood. But it is not necessary to suppose 
that they have followed this long roundabout road 


172 MAN IN SOCIETY 


merely to return to the point from which they started. 
They may always have confined themselves to a simple 
prohibition of the incestuous unions which they 


abhorred. 


LXXII 
THE MARRIAGE OF CROSS-COUSINS! 


The reason why a large group of tribes in Central 
and Northern Australia has carried the social sub- 
division one step farther by splitting each of the four 
exogamous classes into two and so producing the 
eight-class system, appears to have been a growing 
aversion to the marriage of what are called cross- 
cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister 
respectively.22 For we know that many Australian 
tribes forbid such marriages, even though they have 
not adopted the eight-class system, which effectually 
prevents them. Indeed, some tribes which discounte- 
nance the marriage of cross-cousins, such as the Dieri 
and the Kulin, never advanced beyond the stage of 
the two-class system. This shows how even an exo- 
gamous community may by a simple prohibition bar 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. iv. 
pp. 119-120. 


2 First cousins are the children © 


either of two brothers or of two sisters, 
or of a brother and of a sister respect- 
ively. Cousins of this last sort (the 
children of a brother and of a sister 
respectively) are now commonly called 
cross-cousins. Cousins of the other 
two sorts (the children of two brothers 
or of two sisters) have no special name 
in English ; to distinguish them from 
cross-cousins, I call them ortho-cousins. 
The distinction between cross-cousins 
and ortho-cousins isignored by civilized 
nations, but is regarded as of funda- 
mental importance by many peoples 


of the lower culture, who, while they 
strictly forbid the marriage of ortho- 
cousins (the children of two brothers 
or of two sisters), allow, favour, or: 
even enjoin the marriage of cross- 
cousins (the children of a brother and 


of a sister respectively). The marriage 


of ortho-cousins (the children of two 
brothers or of two sisters) is prevented 
by both the two-class system and the 
four-class system: the marriage of 
cross-cousins is prevented by the eight- 
class system alone. Hence Australian 
tribes which have adopted the eight- 
class system ban the marriage of all 
first cousins whatsoever. 


THE ORIGIN OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 173 


marriages which it disapproves of without needing to 
extend its exogamous system by further subdivisions. 
The incest line has most commonly wavered at cross- 
cousins, the children of a brother and of a sister 
respectively, opinion sometimes inclining decidedly in 
favour of, and sometimes decidedly against, these 
unions. So it has been in Australia and so it has been 
elsewhere down to our own time in our own country. 
In Australia some, but not all, of the tribes which 
disapproved of the marriage of cross-cousins expressed 
their disapproval by extending their exogamous 
system so as to include such unions in its ban. Others 
contented themselves with keeping the old exogamous 
system in its simpler forms of two or four classes and 
merely forbidding the marriages in question. 


LXXIII 


THE ORIGIN OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE! 


The two commonest forms of barter in the 


_ Australian matrimonial market were the exchange of 


daughters and the exchange of sisters, and it is not 
clear which of the two forms was the more prevalent, 
for our authorities differ on the subject, some of them 
assigning the palm in point of popularity to the one 
form, and some to the other. Probably the usage 
varied somewhat in different tribes. In general it 
seems likely that in the rivalry between the older 
and the younger men for the possession of wives the 
older men would favour the exchange of daughters, 
because it gave them the chance of adding to their 
own harem, while the younger men would as naturally 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. ii. pp. 202-206, 209-210, 220. 


174 MAN IN SOCIETY 


prefer the exchange of sisters, because it placed their 
matrimonial destiny in their own hands instead of in 
the hands of their venerable parents, the old bucks, 
whose personal designs on the youthful brides they 
had in many cases only too good reason to suspect. 
In some tribes, for example, in those of Western 
Victoria, “the rule is that a father alone can give 
away his daughter. If the father is dead the son 
can dispose of the daughter, with the consent of the 
uncle.” Similarly among some tribes of South 
Australia “brothers often barter their sisters for 
wives for themselves, but it can only be done with 
the parents’ consent, or after their death.” On the 
other hand, among the Narrinyeri, a tribe of South 
Australia, “a girl was given in marriage, usually 
at an early age, sometimes by her father, but generally 
by her brother, and there was always an exchange 
of a sister, or other female relative, of the man to 
whom she was promised”. So common, indeed, 
among the Australian aborigines was this custom 
of bartering sisters at marriage that in some tribes 
of Southern Queensland men who had no sisters to 
offer in exchange had hardly any chance of being 
married at all. 

Of the two forms of barter, the exchange of sisters 
by their brothers was probably older than the exchange 
of daughters by their fathers, since the latter implies 
the recognition not only of paternity but of a father’s 
right to dispose of his offspring, and there are strong 
grounds for believing that in aboriginal Australia 
and probably elsewhere the relations between the 
sexes were at one time so loose and vague that no 
man knew his own children or possessed any authority 
over them. On the other hand, even under such 


THE ORIGIN OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 175 


conditions, the relationship between brothers and 
sisters, the children of the same mother, must have 
been well known, and the recognition of that relation- 
ship probably conferred on brothers a degree of 
authority which enabled them to exchange their 
sisters or their sisters’ daughters for other women, 
whom they either married themselves or gave in 
marriage to their sisters’ sons. Thus in Australia, 
and perhaps in many other places, the right of dis- 
posing of a woman’s hand in marriage may have 
been enjoyed by her brother or her mother’s brother 
long before it devolved on Her father. But as society 
progressed from group marriage, or from still laxer 
forms of commerce between the sexes, to individual 
marriage, in other words, as sexual relations were 
more and more narrowed and confined to the cohabita- 
tion of single pairs, a man would gradually acquire 
an interest in, and an authority over, his wife’s children, 
even before he became aware of the share he had had 
in begetting them; for the social position which he 
occupied as the husband, protector, and in some sense 
the owner of their mother, would give him rights 
over her offspring analogous to those which the owner 
of a cow possesses over her calves. Indeed, to this 
day the very fact of physical paternity is unknown 
to many Australian tribes, but their ignorance on 
that point does not prevent these savages from 
recognizing the mutual rights and duties of fathers 
and children, since these social rights and duties are 
both in theory and in practice perfectly distinct from, 
and independent of, the bond of blood between the 
persons. Hence to a superficial observer the position 
of a father to his children in these tribes might well 
appear not to differ materially from the corresponding 


ea 


176 MAN IN SOCIETY 


position of a father to his children in, Europe, although 
in point of fact the physical relationship between 
them, on which alone, to our thinking, the social 
relationship is based, has not so much as entered into 
the mind of the aborigines. For these reasons we 
may fairly suppose that, with the progressive sub- 
stitution of individual for group marriage, the right 
of disposing of a woman in marriage was gradually 
transferred from her brother or her maternal uncle 
to her father. 

But in whichever way the exchange of women in 
marriage was originally’ effected, whether by the 
brothers or by the fathers of the women, it is certain 
that the custom has been exceedingly common among 
the aborigines of Australia, and from it the custom of 
cross-cousin marriage might very easily arise. For 
when two men had thus married each other’s sisters, 
their children would be cross-cousins, and what more 
natural than that these cross-cousins should in their 
turn marry each other when they came to maturity, 
as their parents had done before them? It is to be 
observed that such cross-cousins are related to each 
other by a twofold tie of consanguinity, since they are 
connected not, like ordinary cross - cousins, through 
one father and one mother only, but through both 
fathers and both mothers. For the father of each 
cousin is the brother of the other cousin’s mother, 
and the mother of each cousin is the sister of the other 
cousin’s father. In fact, the cousins are cross-cousins 
twice over, or what we may call double-cross-cousins. 
It follows from this double-cross relationship that the 
female cousin stands to her male cousin in the relation 
both of mother’s brother’s daughter and of father’s 
sister's daughter ; hence their marriage combines the 


THE ORIGIN OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 177 


two forms of cross-cousin marriage which are usually 
distinguished, namely the marriage with a mother’s 
brother’s daughter and the marriage with a father’s 
sister’s daughter. Such a marriage is therefore a very 
close form.of consanguineous union. 

But if the custom of exchanging sisters in marriage 
preceded not only the recognition of physical paternity 
but even the establishment of permanent social rela- 
tions between a man and his offspring, it seems prob- 
able that the custom of marrying cousins, as a direct 
consequence of the interchange of sisters in marriage, 
also preceded both the recognition of paternity and the 
exercise of any authority by a father over his children. 
For if a man had the right of exchanging a sister for a 
wife, there seems to be no reason why he should not 
have effected the exchange as readily with a cousin as 
with any other man. Hence we need not, with Dr. 
Rivers, suppose that the authority of a father over his 
children was established before the practice of marry- 
ing cousins arose. 

The view that the custom of cross-cousin marriage 
originated in the interchange of sisters is supported by 
the present practice of the Kariera tribe of Western 
Australia, whose marriage system has been accurately 
observed and described by Professor A. R. Brown. 
For in that tribe not only do men commonly exchange 
sisters in marriage, but the double-cross-cousins who 
result from such unions are also allowed and even 
encouraged to marry each other. ... Among the 
Kariera the most proper marriage that can be con- 
tracted is that between first cousins who are doubly 
related to each other by blood, that is, both through 
the father and through the mother, since the husband’s 


father is the wife’s mother’s brother, and the husband’s 
N 


178 MAN IN SOCIETY 


mother is the wife’s father’s sister. In other words, a- 
man marries a woman who is at the same time the 
daughter of his father’s sister and of his mother’s 
brother; and a woman marries a man who is at the 
same time the son of her mother’s brother and of her 
father’s sister; in short, husband and wife in such cases 
are double-cross-cousins. This double relationship by 
blood between the pair arises from the interchange of 
sisters as wives between their two fathers. . . . Thus 
in the Kariera tribe the marriage of cross-cousins flows 
directly and simply, in the ordinary course of events, 
from the interchange of sisters in marriage. Given 
that interchange and the intermarriage of the result- 
ing offspring, and we have cross-cousin marriage in 
its fullest form, namely the marriage of first cousins 
who are doubly related to each other both through 
their fathers and through their mothers; in short, 
we have the marriage of double-cross cousins. But 
the interchange of sisters in marriage was common, 
we may almost say universal, in aboriginal Australia, 
while the marriage of cross-cousins was permitted or 
specially favoured in some tribes. It seems reason- 
able to suppose that in all Australian tribes which 
permitted or favoured the marriage of cross-cousins, 
such marriages were the direct consequence of the 
interchange of sisters in marriage and of nothing 
else. And that interchange of sisters flowed directly 
from the economic necessity of paying for a wife in 
kind, in other words, of giving’a woman in return for 
the woman whom a man received in marriage. 
Having found in aboriginal Australia what appears 
to be a simple and natural explanation of cousin 
marriage, we are next led to inquire whether the same 
cause may not have had the same effect elsewhere ; 


THE ORIGIN OF CROSS-COUSIN MARRIAGE 179 


in other words, whether in other regions, where the 
marriage of cross-cousins is permitted or favoured, 
such unions may not flow directly from the interchange 
of sisters in marriage. There is some reason to think 


that it has been so. At all events we can show that 


the custom of interchanging sisters in marriage occurs 
in some of those regions where the custom of cross- 
cousin marriage prevails ; and since in Australia these 
two customs appear to be related to each other as cause 
and effect, it is natural to suppose that the same causal 
relation obtains between the two customs when they 
are found conjoined elsewhere. 


On the whole, then, it seems probable that the 
practice of exchanging daughters or sisters in marriage 
was everywhere at first a simple case of barter, and 
that it originated in a low state of savagery where 
women had a high economic value as labourers, but 
where private property was as yet at so rudimentary 
a stage that a man had practically no equivalent to give 
for a wife except another woman. The same economic 
motive might lead the offspring of such unions, who 
would be cross-cousins, to marry each other, and thus 
in the easiest and most natural manner the custom of 
cross-cousin marriage would arise and be perpetuated. 
If the history of the custom could be followed in the 
many different parts of the world where it has pre- 
vailed, it might be possible everywhere to trace it back 
to this simple origin; for under the surface alike of 
savagery and of civilization the economic forces are 
as constant and uniform in their operation as the forces 
of nature, of which, indeed, they are merely a peculiarly 
complex manifestation. 


180 MAN IN SOCIETY 


LXXIV 
MAN NOT AN AUTOMATON? 


All attempts to trace the origin and growth of 
human institutions without the intervention of human 
intelligence-and will are radically vicious and fore- 
doomed to failure. It may seem to some to be 
scientific to treat savage man as a mere automaton, a 
shuttlecock of nature, a helpless creature of circum- 
stances, and so to explain the evolution of primitive 
society, like the evolution of material bodies, by the 
play of physical forces alone. But a history of man 
so written is neither science nor history : it is a parody 
of both. For it ignores the prime factor of the move- 
ment, the mainspring of the whole machine, and that 
is man’s conscious life, his thoughts, his aspirations, 
his endeavours. In every age he has had these, and 
they, far more than anything else, have moulded his 
institutions. External nature certainly acts on him, 
but he reacts on it, and his history is the resultant of 
that action and reaction. To leave out of account 
either of these mutually interdependent elements, the 
external and the internal; is to falsify history by pre- 
senting us with an incomplete view of it; but of the 
two the internal element is, if not the more influential, 
certainly the more obvious, the more open to dur 
observation, and therefore the more important for the 
historian, who in his effort to refer the events of 
the human drama to their sources may more safely 
ignore the influence of climate and weather, of soil and 
water, of rivers and mountains, than the thoughts, the 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 281-283. 


LAWS NEVER WHOLLY NEW | 181 


passions, the ambitions of the actors. We shall as 
little understand the growth of savage as of civilized 
institutions if we persist in shutting our eyes to 
the deliberate choice which man, whether savage or 
civilized, has exercised in shaping them. It should 
always be borne in mind that the savage differs from 
his civilized brother rather in degree than in kind, 
rather in the point at which his development has been 
arrested or retarded than in the direction of the line 
which it has followed; and if, as we know, the one 
has used his judgement and discretion in making his 
laws, we may be sure that the other has done so also. 
The kings and presidents, the senates and parliaments 
of civilization have their parallels in the chiefs and 
headmen, the councils of elders and the tribal assemblies 
-of savagery ; and the laws promulgated by the former 
have their counterpart in the customs initiated and 
enforced by the latter. Among savage customs there 
are few or none that bear the impress of thought and 
purpose stamped upon them so clearly as the com- 
plex yet regular marriage system of the Australian 
aborigines. We shall do well therefore to acquiesce 
in the opinion of the best observers, who ascribe the 
origin of that system to the prolonged reflection and 
deliberate intention of the natives themselves. 


LXXV 
LAWS NEVER WHOLLY NEW! 


A very little thought will satisfy us that laws in 
general do not spring armed cap-a-pie into existence 
like Athena from the head of Zeus, at the moment 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. iii. pp. 93-94. 


182 MAN IN SOCIETY 


when they are codified. Legislation and codification 
are two very different things. Legislation is the 
authoritative enactment of certain rules of conduct 
which have either not been observed or have not been 
legally binding before the acts enforcing them were 
passed by the supreme authority. But even new 
laws are seldom or never complete innovations ; they 
nearly always rest upon and presuppose a basis of 
existing custom and public. opinion which harmonize 
more or less with the new laws, and have long silently 
prepared for their reception in the minds of the people. 
The most despotic monarch in the world could not 
force upon his subjects an absolutely new law, which 
should run counter to the whole bent and current of 
their natural disposition, outraging all their hereditary 
opinions and habits, flouting all their most cherished 
sentiments and aspirations. Even in the most seem- 
ingly revolutionary enactment there is always a 
conservative element which succeeds in securing the 
general assent and obedience of a community. Only 
a law which in some measure answers to a people’s 
past has any power to mould that people’s future. 
To reconstruct human society from the foundations 
upward is a visionary enterprise, harmless enough 
so long as it is confined to the Utopias of philosophic 
dreamers, but dangerous and possibly disastrous 
when it is attempted in practice by men, whether 
demagogues or despots, who by the very attempt 
prove their ignorance of the fundamental principles 
of the problem they rashly set themselves to solve. 
Society is a growth, not ‘a structure; and though 
we may modify that growth and mould it into fairer 
forms, as the gardener by his art has evolved blooms 
of lovelier shape and richer hue from the humble 


; 


THE FLUX OF MORALITY 183 


flowers of the field and the meadow, the hedgerow 
and the river-bank, we can as little create society 
afresh as the gardener can create a lily or a rose. 
Thus in every law, as in every plant, there is an 
element of the past, an element which, if we could 
trace it to its ultimate source, would lead us backwards 
to the earliest stages of human life in the one case and 
of plant life in the other. 


LXXVI 
THE FLUX OF MORALITY}! 


That the ethical like the legal code of a people 
stands in need of constant revision will hardly be 
disputed by any attentive and dispassionate observer. 
The old view that the principles of right and wrong 
are immutable and eternal is no longer tenable. The 
moral world is as little exempt as the physical world 
from the law of ceaseless change, of perpetual flux. 
Contemplate the diversities, the inconsistencies, the 
contradictions of the ethical ideas and the ethical 
practice, not merely of different peoples in different 
countries, but of the same people in the same country 
in different ages, then say whether the foundations 
of morality are eternally fixed and unchanging. If 


they seem so to us, as they have probably seemed 


to men in all ages who did not extend their views 
beyond the narrow limits of their time and country, 
it is in all likelihood merely because the rate of change 
is commonly so slow that it is imperceptible at any 
moment and can only be detected by a comparison 


1 The Golden Bough, Part Il. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, Preface, 
PP. vi-viii. 


184 MAN IN SOCIETY 


of accurate observations extending over long periods 
of time. Such a comparison, could we make it, 
would probably convince us that if we speak of the 
moral law as immutable and eternal, it can only be 
in the relative or figurative sense in which we apply 
the same words to the outlines of the great mountains, 
by comparison with the short-lived generations of 
men. The mountains, too, are passing away, though 
we do not see it; nothing is stable and abiding under 
or above the sun. We can as little arrest the process 
of moral evolution as we can stay the sweep of the 
tides or the courses of the stars. 

Therefore, whether we like it or not, the moral 
code by which we regulate our conduct is being 
constantly revised and altered: old rules are being 
silently expunged and new rules silently inscribed 
in the palimpsest by the busy, the unresting hand of 
an invisible scribe. For unlike the public and formal 
revision of a legal code, the revision of the moral 
code is always private, tacit, and informal. The 
legislators who make and the judges who administer 
it are not clad in ermine and scarlet, their edicts are 
not proclaimed with the blare of trumpets and the 
pomp of heraldry. We ourselves are the lawgivers 
and the judges: it is the whole people who make 
and alter the ethical standard and judge every case by 
reference to it. We sit in the highest court of appeal, 
judging offenders daily, and we cannot if we would 
rid ourselves of the responsibility. All that we can 
do is to take as clear and comprehensive a view as 
possible of the evidence, lest from too narrow and 
partial a view we should do injustice, perhaps gross 
and irreparable injustice, to the prisoners at the bar. 
Few things, perhaps, can better guard us from 


a2 y SO ee 5 


A ie 


OUR DEBT TO THE SAVAGE 185 


narrowness and illiberality in our moral judgements 
than a survey of the amazing diversities of ethical 
theory and practice which have been recorded among 
the various races of mankind in different ages; and 
accordingly the Comparative Method applied to the 
study of ethical phenomena may be expected to do 
for morality what the same method applied to religious 
phenomena is now doing for religion, by enlarging 
our mental horizon, extending the boundaries of 
knowledge, throwing light on the origin of current 
beliefs and practices, and thereby directly assisting 
us to replacé what is effete by what is vigorous, and 
what is false by what is true. 


LXXVII 
OUR DEBT TO THE SAVAGE! 


We stand upon the foundation reared by the 
generations that have gone before, and we can but 
dimly conceive the painful and prolonged efforts which 


it has cost humanity to struggle up to the point, no 


very exalted one after all, which we have reached. 


Our gratitude is due to the nameless and forgotten 


toilers, whose patient thought and active exertions 
have largely made us what we are. The amount of 
new knowledge which one age, certainly which one 
man, can add to the common store is small, and it 
argues stupidity or dishonesty, besides ingratitude, 
to ignore the heap while vaunting the few grains 
which it may have been our privilege to add to it. 
There is indeed little danger at present of under- 
valuing the contributions which modern times and even 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 11. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 421-422. 


186 MAN IN SOCIETY 


classical antiquity have made to the general advance- 
ment of our race. But when we pass these limits, the 
case is different. Contempt and ridicule or abhorrence 
and denunciation are too often the only recognition 
vouchsafed to the savage and his ways. Yet of the 
benefactors whom we are bound thankfully to com- 
memorate, many, perhaps most, were savages. For 
when all is said and done our resemblances to the 
savage are still far more numerous than our differ- 
ences from him; and what we have in common with 
him, and deliberately retain as true and useful, we 
owe to our savage forefathers who slowly acquired 
by experience and transmitted to us by inheritance 
those seemingly fundamental ideas which we are apt 
to regard as original and intuitive. We are like heirs 
to a fortune which has been handed down for so many 
ages that the memory of those who built it up is lost, 
and its possessors for the time being regard it as having 
been an original and unalterable possession of their 
race since the beginning of the world. But reflection 
and inquiry should satisfy us that to our predecessors 
we are indebted for much of what we thought most 
our own, and that their errors were not wilful extra- 
vagances or the ravings of insanity, but simply 
hypotheses, justifiable as such at the time when they 
were propounded, but which a fuller experience has 
proved to be inadequate. It is only by the successive 
testing of hypotheses and rejection of the false that 
truth is at last elicited. After all, what we call truth 
is only the hypothesis which is found to work best. 
Therefore in reviewing the opinions and practices of 
ruder ages and races we shall do well to look with 
leniency upon their errors as inevitable slips made 
in the search for truth, and to give them the benefit 


THE PILLARS OF SOCIETY 187 


of that indulgence of which we ourselves may one 
day stand in need: cum excusatione ttaque veteres 
audtenar sunt. 


LXXVIII 
Page wien Or SOCIETY * 


The venerable framework of society rests on many 
pillars, of which the most solid are nature, reason, 
and justice; yet at certain stages of its slow and 
laborious construction it could ill have dispensed 
with the frail prop of superstition. If the day should 
ever come when the great edifice has been carried 
to completion and reposes in simple majesty on 
adamantine foundations, it will be possible, without 
risk to its stability, to cut away and destroy the rotten 
timbers that shored it up in the process of building. 


LXXIX 
INDIRECT BENEFITS OF SUPERSTITION ? 


To readers bred in a religion which is saturated 
with the ascetic idealism of the East, the explanation 
which I have given of the rule of continence observed 
under certain circumstances by rude or savage peoples 
may seem far-fetched and improbable. They may 
think that moral purity, which is so intimately 
associated in their minds with the observance of such 
a rule, furnishes a sufficient explanation of it; they 
may hold with Milton that chastity in itself is a noble 
virtue, and that the restraint which it imposes on one 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. i. p. 103. 
2 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. ii. pp. 117-119. 


188 MAN IN SOCIETY 


of the strongest impulses of our animal nature marks 
out those who can submit to it as men raised above 
the common herd, and therefore worthy to receive 
the seal of the divine approbation. However natural 
this mode of thought may seem to us, it is utterly 
foreign and indeed incomprehensible to the savage. 
If he resists on occasion the sexual instinct, it is from 
no high idealism, no ethereal aspiration after moral 
purity, but for the sake of some ulterior yet perfectly 
definite and concrete object, to gain which he is 
prepared to sacrifice the immediate gratification of 
his senses. That this is or may be so, the examples 
I have cited are amply sufficient to prove. They show 
that where the instinct of self-preservation, which 
manifests itself chiefly in the search for food, conflicts 
or appears to conflict with the instinct which conduces 
to the propagation of the species, the former instinct, 
as the primary and more fundamental, is capable 
of overmastering the latter. In short, the savage 
is willing to restrain his sexual propensity for the 
sake of food. Another object for the sake of which 
he consents to exercise the same self-restraint is victory 
in war. Notonly the warrior in the field but his friends 
at home will often bridle their sensual appetites from 
a belief that by so doing they will the more easily 
overcome their enemies. The fallacy of such a 
belief, like the belief that the chastity of the sower 
conduces to the growth of the seed, is plain enough 
to us; yet perhaps the self-restraint which these and 
the like beliefs, vain and false as they are, have imposed 
on mankind, has not been without its utility in bracing 
and strengthening the breed. For strength of char- 
acter in the race as in the individual consists mainly 
in the power of sacrificing the present to the future, 


3 
‘ 
On 
4 


ee ee i ae 


SUPERSTITION AT THE BAR 189 


of disregarding the immediate temptations of ephemeral 
pleasure for more distant and lasting sources of 
satisfaction. The more the power is exercised the 
higher and stronger becomes the character; till the 
height of heroism is reached in men who renounce 
the pleasures of life and even life itself for the sake 
of keeping or winning for others, perhaps in distant 
ages, the blessings of freedom and truth. 


LXXX 
SUPERSTITION AT THE BAR! 


Weare apt to think of superstition as an unmitigated 
evil, false in itself and pernicious in its consequences. 
That it has done much harm in the world, cannot 
be denied. It has sacrificed countless lives, wasted 
untold treasures, embroiled nations, severed friends, 
parted husbands and wives, parents and children, 
putting swords, and worse than swords, between 
them: it has filled gaols and madhouses with its 
innocent or deluded victims: it has broken many 
hearts, embittered the whole of many a life, and not 
content with persecuting the living it has pursued the 
dead into the grave and beyond it, gloating over the 
horrors which its foul imagination has conjured up 
to appal and torture the survivors. It has done all 
this and more. Yet the case of superstition, like that 
of Mr. Pickwick after the revelations of poor Mr. 
Winkle in the witness-box, can perhaps afford to be 
placed in a rather better light; and without posing 
as the Devil’s Advocate or appearing before you in 


1 Psyche’s Task*, pp. 3-5. 


190 MAN IN SOCIETY 


a blue flame and sulphureous fumes,! I do profess to 
make out what the charitable might call a plausible 
plea for a very dubious client. For I propose to 
prove, or at least make probable, by examples that 
among certain races and at certain stages of evolution 
some social institutions which we all, or most of us, 
believe to be beneficial have partially rested on a 
basis of superstition. The institutions to which I 
refer are purely secular or civil. Of religious or 
ecclesiastical institutions I shall say nothing. It 
might perhaps be possible to show that even religion 
has not wholly escaped the taint or dispensed with 
the support of superstition; but I prefer for to-night 
to confine myself to those civil institutions which 
people commonly imagine to be bottomed on nothing 
but hard common sense and the nature of things. 
While the institutions with which I shall deal have 
all survived into civilized society and can no doubt 
be defended by solid and weighty arguments, it is 
practically certain that among savages, and even 
among peoples who have risen above the level of 
savagery, these very same institutions have derived 
much of their strength from beliefs which nowadays 
we should condemn unreservedly as superstitious 
and absurd. The institutions in regard to which | 
shall attempt to prove this are four, namely, govern- 
ment, private property, marriage, and the respect for 
human life. 

Before putting in this plea for superstition, I wish 
to make two remarks, which I beg you will bear in 
mind. First, in what I have to say I shall confine 
myself to certain races of men and to certain ages of 


1 This plea for Superstition was spoken at a Friday evening meeting of 
the Royal Institution, London. ; 


SUMMING UP FOR THE DEFENCE IgI 


history, because neither my time nor my knowledge 
permits me to speak of all races of men and all ages 
of history. How far the limited conclusions which I 
shall draw for some races and for some ages are appli- 
cable to others must be left to future inquiries to deter- 
mine. Thatis my first remark. My second isthis. If 
it can be proved that in certain races and at certain 
times the institutions in question have been based 
partly on superstition, it by no means follows that even 
among these races they have never been based on any- 
thing else. On the contrary, as all the institutions 
which | shall consider have proved themselves stable 
and permanent, there is a strong presumption that 
they rest mainly on something much more solid than 
superstition. No institution founded wholly on super- 
stition, that is on falsehood, can be permanent. If it 
does not answer to some real human need, if its 
foundations are not laid broad and deep in the nature 
of things, it must perish, and the sooner the better. 
That is my second remark. 


LXXXI 


SUMMING UP FOR THE DEFENCE: SENTENCE 
OF DEATH ! 


To sum up this brief review of the influence which 
superstition has exercised on the growth of institutions, 
I think I have shown, or at least made probable :— 

1. That among certain races and at certain times 
superstition has strengthened the respect for govern- 
ment, especially monarchical government, and has 


1 Psyche’s Task*, pp. 154-156. 


192 MAN IN SOCIETY 


thereby contributed to the establishment and main- 
tenance of civil order: 

2. That among certain races and at certain times 
superstition has strengthened the respect for private 
property and has thereby contributed to the security 
of its enjoyment : 

3. That among certain races and at certain times 
superstition has strengthened the respect for marriage 
and has thereby contributed to a stricter observance 
of the rules of sexual morality both among the married 
and the unmarried : 

4. That among certain races and at certain times 
superstition has strengthened the respect for human 
life and has thereby contributed to the security of its 
enjoyment. 

But government, private property, marriage, and 
respect for human life are the pillars on which rests 
the whole fabric of civil society. Shake them and 
you shake society to its foundations. Therefore if 
government, private property, marriage, and respect 
for human life are all good and essential to the very 
existence of civil society, then it follows that by 
strengthening every one of them superstition has ren- 
dered a great service to humanity. It has supplied 
multitudes with a motive, a wrong motive it is true, for 
right action; and surely it is better, far better, for the 
world that men should do right from wrong motives 
than that they should do wrong with the best intentions. 
What concerns society is conduct, not opinion: if only 
our actions are just and good, it matters not a straw to 
others whether our opinions be mistaken. The danger 
of false opinion, and it is a most serious one, is that 
it commonly leads to wrong action; hence it is un- 
questionably a great evil and every effort should be 


made to correct it. But of the two evils wrong action 


4, 
i 
4 
4 
J 


SUMMING UP FOR THE DEFENCE 193 


is in itself infinitely worse than false opinion ; and all 
systems of religion or philosophy which lay more 
stress on right opinion than on right action, which 
exalt orthodoxy above virtue, are so far immoral and 
prejudicial to the best interests of mankind: they 
invert the true relative importance, the real ethical 
value, of thought and action, for it is by what we do, 
not by what we think, that we are useful or useless, 
beneficent or maleficent to our fellows. As a body 
of false opinions, therefore, superstition is indeed a 
most dangerous guide in practice, and the evils which 
it has wrought are incalculable. But vast as are these 
evils, they ought not to blind us to the benefit which 
superstition has conferred on society by furnishing the 


_ ignorant, the weak, and the foolish with a motive, bad 


though it be, for good conduct. It is a reed, a broken 
reed, which has yet supported the steps of many a poor 
erring brother, who but for it might have stumbled 
and fallen. It is a light, a dim and wavering light, 
which, if it has lured many a mariner on the breakers, 
has yet guided some wanderers on life’s troubled sea 
into a haven of rest and peace. Once the harbour 
lights are passed and the ship is in port, it matters 
little whether the pilot steered by a Jack-o’-lantern 
or by the stars. 

That, ladies and gentlemen, is my plea for Super- 
stition. Perhaps it might be urged in mitigation of 
the sentence which will be passed on the hoary-headed 
offender when he stands at the judgement bar. Yet 
the sentence, do not doubt it, is death. But it will 
not be executed in our time. There will be a long, 
long reprieve. It is as his advocate, not as his 


executioner, that I have appeared before you to-night. 
O 


194 MAN IN SOCIETY 


At Athens cases of murder were tried before the 
Areopagus by night, and it is by night that I have 
spoken in defence of this power of darkness. But it 
grows late, and with my sinister client I must vanish 
before the cocks crow and the morning breaks grey in 
the east. | 


PART III 
MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


195 


LXXXII 


THE ORIGIN OF MAN’S CONCEPTION 
OF GOD? 


Ir we are indeed to discover the origin of man’s 
conception of God, it is not sufficient to analyse the 
ideas which the educated and enlightened portion of 
mankind entertain on the subject at the present day ; 
for in great measure these ideas are traditional, they 
have been handed down with little or no independent 
reflection or inquiry from generation to generation ; 
hence in order to detect them in their inception it 
becomes necessary to push our analysis far back into 
the past. Large materials for such an_ historical 


_ inquiry are provided for us in the literature of ancient 
nations which, though often sadly mutilated and im- 


perfect, has survived to modern times and throws 
much precious light on the religious beliefs and prac- 
tices of the people who created it. But the ancients 
themselves inherited a great part of their religion from 
their prehistoric ancestors, and accordingly it becomes 


desirable to investigate the religious notions of these 


remote forefathers of mankind, since in them we may 
hope at last to arrive at the ultimate source, the 
historical origin, of the whole long development. 

But how can this be done ? how can we investigate 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. §-7+ 
197 


~ 198 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the ideas of peoples who, ignorant of writing, had no 
means of permanently recording their beliefs? At 
first sight the thing seems impossible; the thread of 
inquiry is broken off short; it has landed us on the 
brink of a gulf which looks impassable. But the case 
is not so hopeless as it appears. True, we cannot in- 
vestigate the beliefs of prehistoric ages directly, but the 
comparative method of research may furnish us with 
the means of studying them indirectly ; it may hold 
up to usa mirror in which, if we do not see the originals, 
we may perhaps contemplate their reflections. Fora 
comparative study of the various races of mankind 
demonstrates, or at least renders it highly probable, 
that humanity has everywhere started at an exceed- 
ingly low level of culture, a level far beneath that of 
the lowest existing savages, and that from this humble 
beginning all the various races of men have gradually 
progressed upward at different rates, some faster and 
some slower, till they have attained the particular 
stage which each of them occupies at the present time. 

If this conclusion is correct, the various stages of 
savagery and barbarism on which many tribes and 
peoples now stand represent, broadly speaking, so many 
degrees of retarded social and intellectual development, 
they correspond to similar stages which the ancestors 
of the civilized races may be supposed to have passed 
through at more or less remote periods of their history. 
Thus when we arrange all the known peoples of the 
world according to the degree of their savagery or 
civilization in a graduated scale of culture, we obtain 
not merely a comparative view of their relative posi- 
tions in the scale, but also in some measure an his- 
torical record of the genetic development of culture 
from a very early time down to the present day. Hen¢e 


Bas | 
™ 


THE ORIGIN OF MAN’S CONCEPTION OF GOD _ 199 


a study of the savage and barbarous races of mankind 
is of the greatest importance for a full understanding 
of the beliefs and practices, whether religious, social, 
moral, or political, of the most civilized races, including 
our own, since it is practically certain that a large part 
of these beliefs and practices originated with our 


Savage ancestors, and has been inherited by us from 


them, with more or less of modification, through a long 
line of intermediate generations. 

That is why the study of existing savages at the 
present day engrosses so much of the attention of 
civilized peoples. We see that if we are to comprehend 
not only our past history but our present condition, 
with all its many intricate and perplexing problems, 
we must begin at the beginning by attempting to 
discover the mental state of our savage forefathers, 
who bequeathed to us so much of the faiths, the laws, 
and the institutions which we still cherish ; and more 
and more men are coming to perceive that the only 
way open to us of doing this effectually is to study 
the mental state of savages who to this day occupy 
a state of culture analogous to that of our rude pro- 
genitors. Through contact with civilization these 
Savages are now rapidly disappearing, or at least 
losing the old habits and ideas which render them a 
document of priceless historical value for us. Hence 
we have every motive for prosecuting the study of 
savagery with ardour and diligence before it is too 
late, before the record is gone for ever. We are like 
an heir whose title-deeds must be scrutinized before 
he can take possession of the inheritance, but who 
finds the handwriting of the deeds so fading and 


evanescent that it threatens to disappear entirely 


before he can read the document to the end. With 


*) (ey See does ¥ i 
. Tab eee tics G+ 


200 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


what keen attention, what eager haste, would he not 
scan the fast-vanishing characters? With the like 
attention and the like haste civilized men are now 
applying themselves to the investigation of the fast- 
vanishing savages. | 

Thus if we are to trace historically man’s concep- 
tion of God to its origin, it is desirable, or rather 
essential, that we should begin by studying the most 
primitive ideas on the subject which are accessible 
to us, and the most primitive ideas are unquestionably 
those of the lowest savages. For a similar reason the 
study of inorganic chemistry naturally precedes the 
study of organic chemistry, because inorganic com- 
pounds are much simpler and therefore more easily 
analysed and investigated than organic compounds. 
So with the chemistry of the mind ; we should analyse 
the comparatively simple phenomena of savage 
thought into its constituent elements before we 
attempt to perform a similar operation on the vastly 
more complex phenomena of civilized beliefs. 


LXXXITI 


RUDIMENTARY NOTION OF GOD AMONG 
MANY SAVAGES 1? 


Much of the controversy which has raged as to 
the religion of the lower races has sprung merely from 
a mutual misunderstanding. The savage does not 
understand the thoughts of the civilized man, and 
few civilized men understand the thoughts of the 
savage. When the savage uses his word for god, 
he has in his mind a being of a certain sort: when 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magie Art, vol. i. pp. 375-376. 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 201 


the civilized man uses his word for god, he has in his 
mind a being of a very different sort; and if, as 
commonly happens, the two men are equally unable 
to place themselves at the other’s point of view, 
nothing but confusion and mistakes can result from 
their discussions. If we civilized men insist on 
limiting the name of God to that particular conception 
of the divine nature which we ourselves have formed, 
then we must confess that the savage has no god at 
all. But we shall adhere more closely to the facts 
of history if we allow most of the higher savages at 
least to possess a rudimentary notion of certain 
supernatural beings who may fittingly be called gods, 
though not in the full sense in which we use the word. 
That rudimentary notion represents in all probability 
the germ out of which the civilized peoples have 
gradually evolved their own high conceptions of 
deity; and if we could trace the whole course of 
religious development, we might find that the chain 
which links our idea of the Godhead with that of the 
savage is one and unbroken. 


LXXXIV 
NATURAL THEOLOGY ? 


If there is such a thing as natural theology, that is, 
a knowledge of a God or gods acquired by our natural 
faculties alone without the aid of a special revelation, 
it follows that it must be obtained by one or other of 
the methods by which all our natural knowledge is 
conveyed to us. Roughly speaking, these methods 
are two in number, namely, intuition and experience. 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 11-23. 


202 | MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


Now if we ask ourselves, Do we know God intuitively 
in the same sense in which we know intuitively our 
own sensations and the simplest truths of mathematics, 
I think most men will acknowledge that they do not. 
It is true that according to Berkeley the world exists 
only as it is perceived, and that our perceptions of it 
are produced by the immediate action of God on our 
minds, so that everything we perceive might be de- 
scribed, if not as an idea in the mind of the deity, at 
least as a direct emanation from him. On this theory 
we might in a sense be said to have an immediate 
knowledge of God. But Berkeley’s theory has found 
little acceptance, so far as I know, even among philo- 
sophers ; and even if we regarded it as true, we should 
still have to admit that the knowledge of God implied 
by it is inferential rather than intuitive in the strict 
sense of the word: we infer God to be the cause of our 
perceptions rather than identify him with the per- 
ceptions themselves. On the whole, then, I conclude 
that man, or at all events the ordinary man, has, 
properly speaking, no immediate or intuitive know- 
ledge of God, and that, if he obtains, without the aid 
of revelation, any knowledge of him at all, it can only 
be through the other natural channel of knowledge, 
that is, through experience. 

In experience, as distinct from intuition, we reach 
our conclusions not directly through simple contem- 
plation of the particular sensations, emotions, or ideas 
of which we are at the moment conscious, but in- 
directly by calling up before the imagination and 
comparing with each other our memories of a variety of 
sensations, emotions, or ideas of which we have been 
conscious in the past, and by selecting or abstracting 
from the mental images so compared the points in 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 203 


which they resemble each other. The points of re- 
semblance thus selected or abstracted from a number 
of particulars compose what we call an abstract or 
general idea, and from a comparison of such abstract 
or general ideas with each other we arrive at general 
conclusions, which define the relations of the ideas to 
each other. Experience in general consists in the 
whole body of conclusions thus deduced from a com- 
parison of all the particular sensations, emotions, and 
ideas which make up the conscious life of the individual. 
Hence in order to constitute experience the mind has 
to perform a more or less complex series of operations, 
which are commonly referred to certain mental facul- 
ties, such as memory, imagination, and judgement. 
This analysis of experience does not pretend to be 
philosophically complete or exact; but perhaps it is 
sufficiently accurate for the purpose of the present 
inquiry, the scope of which is not philosophical but 
historical. | 

Now experience in the widest sense of the word 
may be conveniently distinguished into two sorts, the 
experience of our own mind and the experience of an 
external world. The distinction is indeed, like the 
others with which I am dealing at ‘present, rather 
practically useful than theoretically sound ; certainly 
it would not be granted by all philosophers, for many 
of them have held that we neither have nor with our 
present faculties can possibly attain to any immediate 
knowledge or perception of an external world, we 
merely infer its existence from our own sensations, 
which are as strictly a part of our mind as the ideas 
and emotions of our waking life or the visions of sleep. 
According to them, the existence of matter or of an 
external world is, so far as we are concerned, merely 


Ee ae a ge oe 


204 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


an hypothesis devised to explain the order of our 
sensations ; ‘it never has been perceived by any man, 
woman, or child who ever lived on earth; we have 
and can have no immediate knowledge or perception 
of anything but the states and operations of our own 
mind. On this theory what we call the world, with all 
its supposed infinitudes of space and time, its systems 
of suns and planets, its seemingly endless forms of 
inorganic matter and organic life, shrivels up, on a 
close inspection, into a fleeting, a momentary figment 
of thought. It is like one of those glass baubles, 
iridescent with a thousand varied and delicate hues, 
which a single touch suffices to shatter into dust. The 
philosopher, like the sorcerer, has but to wave his 
magic wand, 
‘* And, like the baseless fabric of this vision, 

The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces, 

‘The solemn temples, the great globe itself, 

Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve 

And, like this insubstantial pageant faded, 

Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff 


As dreams are made on, and our little life 
Is rounded with a sleep.” 


It would be beyond my province, even if it were 
within my power, to discuss these airy speculations, 
and thereby to descend into the arena where for ages 
subtle dialecticians have battled with each other over 
the reality or unreality of an external world. For my 
purpose it suffices to adopt the popular and convenient 
distinction of mind and matter and hence to divide - 
experience into two sorts, an inward experience of the 
acts and states of our own minds, and an outward 
experience of the acts and states of that physical 
universe by which we seem to be surrounded. 

Now if a natural knowledge of God is only possible 


NATURAL THEOLOGY . 205 


by means of experience, in other words, by a process 
of reasoning based on observation, it will follow that 
such a knowledge may conceivably be acquired either 
by the way of inward or of outward experience; in 
other words, it may be attained either by reflecting on 
the processes of our own minds or by observing the 
processes of external nature. In point of fact, if we 
survey the history of thought, mankind appears to 
have arrived at a knowledge, or at all events at a 
conception, of deity by both these roads. Let me 
say a few words as to the two roads which lead, or 
seem to lead, man to God. 

In the first place, then, men in many lands and 
many ages have experienced certain extraordinary 
emotions and entertained certain extraordinary ideas, 
‘which, unable to account for them by reference to the 
ordinary forms of experience, they have set down to 
the direct action of a powerful spirit or deity working . 
on their minds and even entering into and taking 
possession of their bodies; and in this excited state— 
for violent excitement is characteristic of these mani- © 
festations—the patient believes himself to be possessed 
of supernatural knowledge and supernatural power. 
This real or supposed mode of apprehending a divine 
spirit and entering into communion with it, is commonly 
and appropriately called inspiration. The pheno- 
menon is familiar to us from the example of the 
Hebrew nation, who believed that their prophets were 
thus inspired by the deity, and that their sacred books 
were regularly composed under the divine afflatus. 
The belief is by no means singular, indeed it appears 
to be world-wide ; for it would be hard to point to any 
race of men among whom instances of such inspiration 
have not been reported ; and the more ignorant and 


206 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


savage the race the more numerous, to judge by the 
reports, are the cases of inspiration. Volumes might 
be filled with examples, but through the spread of 
information as to the lower races in recent years the 
topic has become so familiar that I need not stop to 
illustrate it by instances. I will merely say that 
among savages the theory of inspiration or possession 
is commonly invoked to explain all abnormal mental 
States, particularly insanity or conditions of mind 
bordering on it, so that pérsons more or less crazed 
in their wits, and particularly hysterical or epileptic 
patients, are for that very reason thought to be pecu- 
liarly favoured by the spirits and are therefore con- 
sulted as oracles, their wild and whirling words passing 
for the revelations of a higher power, whether a god 
or a ghost, who considerately screens his too dazzling 
light under a thick veil of dark sayings and mysterious 
ejaculations. I need hardly point out the very serious 
dangers which menace any society where such theories 
are commonly held and acted upon. If the decisions 
of a whole community in matters of the gravest im- 
portance are left to turn on the wayward fancies, the 
whims and vagaries of the insane or the semi-insane, 
what are likely to be the consequences to, the common- 
wealth ? What, for example, can be expected to 
result from a war entered upon at such dictation and 
waged under such auspices? Are cattle-breeding, 
agriculture, commerce, all the arts of life on which a 
people depend for their subsistence, likely to thrive 
when they are directed by the ravings of epilepsy or 
the drivellings of hysteria? Defeat in battle, con- 
quest by enemies, death by famine and widespread 
disease, these and a thousand other lesser evils threaten 
the blind people who commit themselves to such blind 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 207 


guides. The history of savage and.barbarous tribes, 
could we follow it throughout, might furnish us with 
a thousand warning instances of the fatal effects of 
carrying out this crude theory of inspiration to its 
logical conclusions; and if we hear less than might 
be expected of such instances, it is probably because 
the tribes who consistently acted up to their beliefs 
have thereby wiped themselves out of existence: they 
have perished the victims of their folly and left no 
record behind. I believe that historians have not 
yet reckoned sufficiently with the disastrous influence 
which this worship of insanity—for it is often nothing 
less—has exercised on the fortunes of peoples and on 
the development or decay of their institutions. 

To a certain extent, however, the evil has provided 
its own remedy. For men of strong heads and 
ambitious temper, perceiving the exorbitant power 
which a belief in inspiration places in the hands of 
the feeble-minded, have often feigned to be similarly 
afflicted, and trading on their reputation for imbecility, 
or rather inspiration, have acquired an authority over 
their fellows which, though they have often abused 
it for vulgar ends, they have sometimes exerted for 
good, as for example by giving sound advice in 
matters of public concern, applying salutary remedies 
to the sick, and detecting and punishing crime, whereby 
they have helped to preserve the commonwealth, 
to alleviate suffering, and to cement that respect for 
law and order which is essential to the stability of 
society, and without which any community must fall 
to pieces like a house of cards. These great services 
have been rendered to the cause of civilization and 
progress by the class of men who in primitive society 
are variously known as medicine-men, magicians, 


208 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


sorcerers, diviners, soothsayers, and so forth. Some- 
times the respect which they have gained by the 
exercise of their profession has won for them political 
as well as spiritual or ghostly authority ; in short, 
from being simple medicine-men or sorcerers they 
have grown into chiefs and kings. When such men, 
seated on the throne of state, retain their old reputa- 
tion for being the vehicles of a divine spirit, they may 
be worshipped in the character of gods as well as 
revered in the capacity of kings; and thus exerting — 
a twofold sway over the minds of men they possess 
a most potent instrument for elevating or depressing 
the fortunes of their worshippers and subjects. In 
this way the old savage notion of inspiration or 
possession gradually develops into the doctrine of 
the divinity of kings, which after a long period of 
florescence dwindles away into the modest theory 
that kings reign by divine right, a theory familiar 
to our ancestors not long ago, and perhaps not wholly 
obsolete among us even now. However, inspired 
men need not always blossom out into divine kings ; 
they may, and often do, remain in the chrysalis state 
of simple deities revered by their simple worshippers, 
their brows encircled indeed with a halo of divinity 
but not weighted with the more solid substance of 
_a kingly crown. Thus certain extraordinary mental 
states, which those who experience and those who 
witness them cannot account for in any other way, 
are often explained by the supposed interposition of 
a spirit or deity. This, therefore, is one of the two 
forms of experience by which men attain, or imagine 
that they attain, to a knowledge of God and a com- 
munion with him. It is what I have called the road 
of inward experience. Let us now glance at the other 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 209 


form of experience which leads, or seems to lead, 
to the same goal. It is what I have called the road 
of outward experience. 

When we contemplate the seemingly infinite 
variety, the endless succession, of events that pass 
under our observation in what we call the external 
world, we are led by an irresistible tendency to trace 
what we call a causal connexion between them. The 
tendency to discover the causes of things appears 
indeed to be innate in the constitution of our minds 
and indispensable to our continued existence. It is 
the link that arrests and colligates into convenient 
bundles the mass of particulars drifting pell-mell 
past on the stream of sensation ; it is the cement that 
binds into an edifice seemingly of adamant the loose 
sand of isolated perceptions. Deprived of the know- 
ledge which this tendency appears to procure for us 
we should be powerless to foresee the succession of 
phenomena and so adapt ourselves to it. We should 
be bewildered by the apparent disorder and confusion 
of everything, we should toss on.a sea without a rudder, 
-we should wander in an endless maze without a clue, 
and finding no way out of it, or, in plain words, unable 
to avoid a single one of the dangers which menace us 
at every turn, we should inevitably perish. Accordingly - 
the propensity to search for causes is characteristic 
of man in all ages and at all levels of culture, 
though without doubt it is far more highly developed 
in civilized than in savage communities. Among 
savages it is more or less unconscious and instinctive ; 
among civilized men it is deliberately cultivated and 
rewarded at least by the applause of their fellows, 
by the dignity, if not by the more solid recompenses, 


of learning. Indeed, as civilization progresses the 
P 


210 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


inquiry into causes tends to absorb more and more 
of the highest intellectual energies of a people; and 
an ever greater number of men, renouncing the bustle, 
the pleasures, and the ambitions of an active life, 
devote themselves exclusively to the pursuit of 
abstract truth; they set themselves to discover the 
causes of things, to trace the regularity and order that 
may be supposed to underlie the seemingly irregular, 
confused, and arbitrary sequence of phenomena. 
Unquestionably the progress of civilization owes much 
to the sustained efforts of such men, and if of late years 
and within our own memory the pace of progress 
has sensibly quickened, we shall perhaps not err in 
supposing that some part at least of the acceleration 
may be accounted for by an increase in the number 
of life-long students. 

Now when we analyse the conception of a cause 
to the bottom, we find as the last residuum in our 
crucible nothing but what Hume found there long 
ago, and that is simply the idea of invariable sequence. 
Whenever we say that something is the cause of 
something else, all that we really mean is that the 
latter is invariably preceded by the former, so that 
whenever we find the second, which we call the effect, 
we may infer that the first, which we call the cause, 
has gone before it. All such inferences from effects to 
causes are based on experience; having observed a 
certain sequence of events a certain number of times, 
we conclude that the events are so conjoined that the 
latter cannot occur without the previous occurrence 
of the former. A single case of two events following 
each other could not of itself suggest that the one event 
is the cause of the other, since there is no necessary 
link between them in the mind; the sequence has 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 211 


to be repeated more or less frequently before we infer 
a causal connexion between the two; and this infer- 
ence rests simply on that association of ideas which is 
established in our mind by the reiterated observation 
of the things. Once the ideas are by dint of repetition 
firmly welded together, the one by sheer force of habit 
calls up the other, and we say that the two things 
which are represented by those ideas stand to each 
other in the relation of cause and effect. The notion 
of causality is, in short, only one particular case of the 
association of ideas. Thus all reasoning as to causes 
implies previous observation: we reason from the 
observed to the unobserved, from the known to the 
unknown ; and the wider the range of our observation 
and knowledge, the greater the probability that our 
reasoning will be correct. 

All this is as true of the savage as of the civilized 
man. He too argues, and indeed can only argue, 
on the basis of experience from the known to the 
unknown, from the observed to the hypothetical. 
But the range of his experience is comparatively 
narrow, and accordingly his inferences from it often 
appear to civilized men, with their wider knowledge, 
to be palpably false and absurd. This holds good 
most obviously in regard to his observation of external 
nature. While he often knows a good deal about 
the natural objects, whether animals, plants, or 
inanimate things, on which he is immediately de- 
pendent for his subsistence, the extent of country 
with which he is acquainted is commonly but small, 
and he has little or no. opportunity of correcting the 
conclusions which he bases on his observation of it 
by a comparison with other parts of the world. But 
if he knows little of the outer world, he is necessarily 


Fy ere 


212 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


somewhat better acquainted with his own inner life, 
with his sensations and ideas, his emotions, appetites, 
and desires. Accordingly it is natural enough that 
when he seeks to discover the causes of events in the 
external world, he should, arguing from experience, 
imagine that these events are produced by the actions 
of invisible beings like himself, who behind the veil 
of nature pull the strings that set the vast machinery 
in motion. For example, he knows by experience 
that he can make sparks fly by knocking two flints 
against each other; what more natural, therefore, 
than that he should imagine the great sparks which 
we call lightning to be made in the same way by 
somebody up aloft, and that when he finds chipped 
flints on the ground he should take them for thunder- 
stones dropped by the maker of thunder and lightning 
from the clouds? Thus arguing from his limited 
experience primitive man creates a multitude of spirits 
or gods in his own likeness to explain the succession 
of phenomena in nature of whose true causes he is 
ignorant; in short, he personifies the phenomena as 
powerful anthropomorphic spirits, and believing him- 
self to be more or less dependent on their good will 
he woos their favour by prayer and sacrifice. This 
personification of the various aspects of external 
nature is one of the most fruitful sources of polytheism. 
The spirits and gods created by this train of thought 
may be called spirits and gods of nature to distinguish 
them from the human gods, by which I mean the 
living men and women. who are believed by their 
worshippers to be inspired or possessed by a divine 
spirit. 

But as time goes on and men learn more about 
nature, they commonly become dissatisfied with poly- 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 213 


theism as an explanation of the world and gradually : 


discard it. From one department of nature after 
another the gods are reluctantly or’ contemptuously 
dismissed and their provinces committed to the care 
of certain abstract ideas of ethers, atoms, molecules, 
and so forth, which, though just as imperceptible to 
human senses as their divine predecessors, are judged 
by prevailing opinion to discharge their duties with 
greater regularity and despatch, and are accordingly 
firmly installed on the vacant thrones amid the general 
applause of the more enlightened portion of mankind. 
Thus instead of being peopled with a noisy bustling 
crowd of full-blooded and picturesque deities, clothed 
in the graceful form and animated with the warm 
passions of humanity, the universe outside the narrow 
circle of our consciousness is now conceived as abso- 
lutely silent, colourless, and deserted. The cheerful 
sounds which we hear, the bright hues which we see, 


_have no existence, we are told, in the external world: 


the voices of friends, the harmonies of music, the 
chime of falling waters, the solemn roll of ocean, the 
silver splendour of the moon, the golden glories of 
sunset, the verdure of summer woods, and the hectic 
tints of autumn—all these subsist only in our own 
minds, and if we imagine them to have any reality 
elsewhere, we deceive ourselves. In fact, the whole 
external world as perceived by us is one great illusion : 
if we gave the reins to fancy we might call it a mirage, 
a piece of witchery, conjured up by the spells of some 
unknown magician to bewilder poor ignorant humanity. 
Outside of ourselves there stretches away on every 
side an infinitude of space without sound, without 
light, without colour, a solitude traversed only in 
every direction by an inconceivably complex web of 


214 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


silent and impersonal forces. That, if I understand it 
aright, is the general conception of the world which 
modern science has substituted for polytheism. 

When philosophy and science by their combined 
efforts have ejected gods and goddesses from all the 
subordinate posts of nature, it might perhaps be 
expected that they would have no further occasion for 
the services of a deity, and that having relieved him 
of all his particular functions they would have arranged 
for the creation and general maintenance of the uni- 
verse without him by handing over these important 
offices to an efficient staff of those ethers, atoms, cor- 
puscles, and so forth, which had already proved them- 
selves so punctual in the discharge of the minor duties 
entrusted to them. Nor, indéed, is this expectation 
altogether disappointed. A number of atheistical philo- 
sophers have courageously come forward and assured 
us that the hypothesis of a deity as the creator and 
preserver of the universe is quite superfluous, and that 
all things came into being or have existed from eternity 
without the help of any divine spirit, and that they 
will continue to exist without it to the end, if end 
indeed there is to be. But on the whole these daring 
speculators appear to be in a minority. The general 
opinion of educated people at the present day, could 
we ascertain it, would probably be found to incline 
to the conclusion that, though every department of 
nature is now worked by impersonal material forces 
alone, the universe as a whole was created and is still 
maintained by a great supernatural spirit whom we 
call God. Thus in Europe and in the countries which 
have borrowed their civilization, their philosophy, 
and their religion from it, the «central problem of 
natural theology has narrowed itself down to the 


a 


ae 


NATURAL THEOLOGY 215 


question, Is there one God or none? It is a pro- 
found question, and I for one profess myself unable 
to answer it. 

If this brief sketch of the history of natural theo- 
logy is correct, man has by the exercise of his natural 
faculties alone, without the help of revelation, attained 
to a knowledge or at least to a conception of God in 
one of two ways, either by meditating on the opera- 
tions of his own mind, or by observing the processes 
of external nature: inward experience and outward 
experience have conducted him by different roads to 
the same goal. By whichever of them the conception 
has been reached, it is regularly employed to explain 
the causal connexion of things, whether the things to 
be explained are the ideas and emotions of man himself 
or the changes in the physical world outside of him. 
In short, a God is always brought in to play the part 
of a cause; it is the imperious need of tracing the 
causes of events which has driven man to discover or 
invent a deity. Now causes may be arranged in two 
classes according as they are perceived or unperceived 
by the senses. For example, when we see the impact 
of a billiard cue on a billiard ball followed immediately 
by the motion of the ball, we say that the impact is 
the cause of the motion. In this case we perceive the 
cause as well as the effect. But when we see an apple 
fall from a tree to the ground, we say that the cause of 
the fall is the force of gravitation exercised by the 
superior mass of the earth on the inferior mass of the 
apple. In this case, though we perceive the effect, 
we do not perceive the cause, we only infer it by a 
process of reasoning from experience. Causes of the 
latter sort may be called inferential or hypothetical 
causes to distinguish them from those which are 


216 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


perceived. Of the two classes of-causes a deity belongs 
in general, if not universally, to the second, that is, to 
the inferential or hypothetical causes; for as a rule at 
all events his existence is not perceived by our senses 
_ but inferred by our reason. To say that he has hever 
appeared in visible and tangible form to men would 
be to beg the question ; it would be to make an asser- 
tion which is incapable of proof and which is contra- 
dicted by a multitude of contrary affirmations recorded 
in the traditions or the sacred books of many races ; 
but without being rash we may perhaps say that such 
appearances, if they ever took place, belong to a past 
order of events and need hardly be reckoned with at 
the present time. For all practical purposes, there- 
fore, God is now a purely inferential or hypothetical 
cause ; he may be invoked to explain either our own 
thoughts and feelings, our impulses and emotions, or 
the manifold states and processes of external nature ; 
he may be viewed either as the inspirer of the one or 
the creator and preserver of the other ; and according 
as he is mainly regarded from the one point of view 
or the other, the conception of the divine nature tends 
to beget one of two very different types of piety. To 
the man who traces the finger of God in the workings 
of his own mind, the deity appears to be far closer 
than he seems to the man who only infers the divine 
existence from the marvellous order, harmony, and 
beauty of the external world ; and we need not wonder 
that the faith of the former is of a more fervent temper 
and supplies him with more powerful incentives to a 
life of active devotion than the calm and rational 
faith of the latter. We may conjecture that the piety 


of most great religious reformers has belonged to the 


former rather than to the latter type; in other words, 


I le i al ter el a a le a 


THE AGE OF MAGIC 217 


that they have believed in God because they felt, or 
imagined that they felt, him stirring in their own 
hearts rather than because they discerned the handi- 
work of a divine artificer in the wonderful mechanism 
of nature. 


LXXXV 
THE AGE OF MAGIC! 


If in the most backward state of human society 
now known to us we find magic conspicuously present 
and religion conspicuously absent, may we not reason- 
ably conjecture that the civilized races of the world have 
also at some period of their history passed through 
a similar intellectual phase, that they attempted to 
force the great powers of nature to do their pleasure 
before they thought of courting their favour by 
offerings and prayer—in short that, just as on the 
material side of human culture there has everywhere 
been an Age of Stone, so on the intellectual side there 
has everywhere been an Age of Magic? There are 
reasons for answering this question in the affirmative. 
When we survey the existing races of mankind from 
Greenland to Tierra del Fuego, or from Scotland 
to Singapore, we observe that they are distinguished 
one from the other by a great variety of religions, 
and that these distinctions are not, so to speak, merely 
coterminous with the broad distinctions of race, but 
descend into the minuter subdivisions of states and 
commonwealths, nay, that they honeycomb the town, 
the village, and even the family, so that the surface 
of society all over the world is cracked and seamed, 


' 1 The Golden Bough, Part I. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 234-237. 


pene 4 “7k, 1 eat ee 
3 Pa = 


218 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


sapped and mined with rents and fissures and yawning 
crevasses opened up by the disintegrating influence of 
religious dissension. Yet when we have penetrated 
through these differences, which affect mainly the 
intelligent and thoughtful part of the community, 
we shall find underlying them all a solid stratum of 
intellectual agreement among the dull, the weak, the 
ignorant, and the superstitious, who constitute, un- 
fortunately, the vast majority of mankind. One of 
the great achievements of the nineteenth century 
was to run shafts down into this low mental stratum 
in many parts of the world, and thus to discover its 
substantial identity everywhere. It is beneath our 
feet—and not very far beneath them—here in Europe 
at the present day, and it crops up on the surface in 
the heart of the Australian wilderness and wherever 
the advent of a higher civilization has not crushed 
it under ground. This universal faith, this truly 
Catholic creed, is a belief in the efficacy of magic. 
While religious systems differ not only in different 
countries, but in the same country in different ages, 
the system of sympathetic magic remains everywhere 
and at all times substantially alike in its principles 
and practice. Among the ignorant and superstitious 
classes of modern Europe it is very much what it 
was thousands of years ago in Egypt and India, 
and what it now is among the lowest savages sur- 
viving in the remotest corners of the world. If 
the test of truth lay in a show of hands or a count- 
ing of heads, the system of magic might appeal, 
with far more reason than the Catholic Church, to 
the proud motto, ‘‘ Quod semper, quod ubique, quod 
ab omnibus’’, as the sure and certain credential of 
its own infallibility. 


THE AGE OF MAGIC 219 


It is not our business here to consider what bearing 
the permanent existence of such a solid layer of 
savagery beneath the surface of society, and unaffected 
by the superficial changes of religion and culture, 
has upon the future of humanity. The dispassionate 
observer, whose studies have led him to plumb its 
depths, can hardly regard it otherwise than as a 
standing menace to civilization. We seem to move 
on a thin crust which may at any moment be rent 
by the subterranean forces slumbering below. From 
time to time a hollow murmur underground or a 
sudden spirt of flame into the air tells of what is going 
on beneath our feet. Now and then the polite world 
is startled by a paragraph in a newspaper which tells 
how in Scotland an image has been found stuck full 
of pins for the purpose of killing an obnoxious laird 
or minister, how a woman has been slowly roasted to 
death as a witch in Ireland, or how a girl has been 
murdered and chopped up in Russia to make those 
candles of human tallow by whose light thieves hope 
to pursue their midnight trade unseen. But whether 
the influences that make for further progress, or those 
that threaten to undo what has already been accom- 
plished, will ultimately prevail ; whether the impulsive 
energy of the minority: of the dead weight of the 
majority of mankind will prove the stronger force 
to carry us up to higher heights or to sink us into 
lower depths, are questions rather for the sage, the 
moralist, and the statesman, whose eagle vision scans 
the future, than for the humble student of the present 
and the past. Here we are- only concerned to ask 
how far the uniformity, the universality, and the 
permanence of a belief in magic, compared with the 
endless variety and the shifting character of religious 


220 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


creeds, raises a presumption that the former represents 
a ruder and earlier phase of the human mind, through 
which all the races of mankind have passed or are 
passing on their way to religion and science. 


LXXXVI 
THE PRINCIPLES OF MAGIC} 


If we analyse the principles of thought on which 
magic is based, they will probably be found to resolve 
themselves into two: first, that like produces like, 
or that an effect resembles its cause; and, second, 
that things which have once been in contact with 
each other continue to act on each other at a distance 
after the physical contact has been severed. The 
former principle may be called the Law of Similarity, 
the latter the Law of Contact or Contagion. From 
the first of these principles, namely the Law of Simi- 
larity, the magician infers that he can produce any 
effect he desires merely by imitating it: from the 
second he infers that whatever he does to a material 
object will affect equally the person with whom the 
object was once in contact, whether it formed part 
of his body or not. Charms based on the Law of 
- Similarity may be called Homoeopathic or Imitative 
Magic. Charms based on the Law of Contact or 
Contagion may be called Contagious Magic. To 
denote the first of these branches of magic the term 
Homoeopathic is perhaps preferable, for the alterna-. 
tive term Imitative or Mimetic suggests, if it does 
not imply, a conscious agent who imitates, thereby 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. §2-54. 


_ THE PRINCIPLES OF MAGIC 221 


limiting the scope of magic too narrowly. For the 
same principles which the magician applies in the 
practice of his art are implicitly believed by him to 
regulate the operations of inanimate nature; in other 
words, he tacitly assumes that the Laws of Similarity 
and Contact are of universal application and are not 
limited to human actions. In short, magic is a 
spurious system of natural law as well as a fallacious 
guide of conduct; it is a false science as well as an 
abortive art. Regarded as a system of natural law, 
that is, as a statement of the rules which determine 
the sequence of events throughout the world, it may 
be called Theoretical Magic: regarded as a set of 
precepts which human beings observe in order to 
compass their ends, it may be called Practical Magic. 
At the same time it is to be borne in mind that the 
primitive magician knows magic only on its practical 
side; he never analyses the mental processes on 
which his practice is based, never reflects on the 
abstract principles involved in his actions. With 
him, as with the vast majority of men, logic is implicit, 
not explicit: he reasons just as he digests his food 
in complete ignorance of the intellectual and physio- 
logical processes which are essential to the one 
operation and to the other. In short, to him magic 
is always an art, never a science; the very idea of 
science is lacking in his undeveloped mind. It is 
for the philosophic student to trace the train of thought 
which underlies the magician’s practice; to draw 
out the few simple threads of which the tangled skein 
is composed; to disengage the abstract principles 
from their concrete applications ; in short, to discern 
the spurious science behind the bastard art. 

If my analysis of the magician’s logic is correct, 


222 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


its two great principles turn out to be merely two 
different misapplications of the association of ideas. 
Homoeopathic magic is founded on the association 
of ideas by similarity ; contagious magic is founded 
on the association of ideas by contiguity. Homoeo- 
pathic magic commits the mistake of assuming that 
things which resemble each other are the same: 
contagious magic commits the mistake of assuming 
that things which have once been in contact with each 
other are always in contact. But in practice the two 
branches are often combined; or, to be more exact, 
while homoeopathic or imitative magic may be 
practised by itself, contagious magic will generally 
be found to involve an application of the homoeopathic 
or imitative principle. Thus generally stated the two 
things may be a little difficult to grasp, but they will 
readily become intelligible when they are illustrated 
by particular examples. Both trains of thought are 
in fact extremely simple and elementary. It could 
hardly be otherwise, since they are familiar in the 
concrete, though certainly not in the abstract, to the 
crude intelligence not only of the savage, but of 
ignorant and dull-witted people everywhere. Both 
branches of magic, the homoeopathic and the con- 
tagious, may conveniently be comprehended under 
the general name of Sympathetic Magic, since both 
assume that things act on each other at a distance 
through a secret sympathy, the impulse being trans- 
mitted from one to the other by means of what we 
may conceive as a kind of invisible ether, not unlike 
that which is postulated by modern science for a 
precisely similar purpose, namely, to explain how 
things can physically affect each other through a 
space which appears to be empty. 


NEGATIVE MAGIC 223 


It may be convenient to tabulate as follows the 
branches of magic according to the laws of thought 
which underlie them : 


Sympathetic Magic 
(Law of Sympathy) 
| 


Homoeopathic Magic Contagious Magic 
(Law of Similarity) (Law of Contact) 


LXXXVII 
NEGATIVE MAGIC}? 


The system of sympathetic magic is not merely 
composed of positive precepts; it comprises a very 
large number of negative precepts, that is, prohibitions. 
It tells you not merely what to do, but also what to 
leave undone. The positive precepts are charms: 
the negative precepts are taboos. In fact, the whole 
doctrine of taboo, or at all events a large part of it, 
would seem to be only a special application of sym- 
pathetic magic, with its two great laws of similarity 
and contact. Though these laws are certainly not 
formulated in so many words nor even conceived in 
the abstract by the savage, they are nevertheless im- 
-plicitly believed by him to regulate the course of nature 
quite independently of human will. He thinks that 
if he acts in a certain way, certain consequences will 
inevitably follow in virtue of one or other of these laws ; 
and if the consequences of a particular act appear to 
him likely to prove disagreeable or dangerous, he is 
naturally careful not to act in that way lest he should 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 111-113. 


224 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


incur them. In other words, he abstains from doing 
that which, in accordance with his mistaken notions 
of cause and effect, he falsely believes would injure 
him ; in short, he subjects himself to a taboo. Thus 
taboo is so far a negative application of practical magic. 
Positive magic or sorcery says, ‘‘ Do this in order that 
so and so may happen.” Negative magic or taboo 
says, ‘‘ Do not do this, lest so and so should happen.” 
The aim of positive magic or sorcery is to produce a 
desired event ; the aim of negative magic or taboo is 
to avoid an undesirable one. But both consequences, 
the desirable and the undesirable, are supposed to be 
brought about in accordance with the laws of similarity 
and contact. And just as the desired consequence is 
not really effected by the observance of a magical 
ceremony, so the dreaded consequence does not really 
result from the violation of a taboo. If the supposed 
evil necessarily followed a breach of taboo, the taboo 
would not be a taboo but a precept of morality or 
common sense. It is not a taboo to say, “ Do not 
put your hand in the fire”; it is a rule of common 
sense, because the forbidden action entails a real, not 
an imaginary evil. In short, those negative precepts 
which we call taboo are just as vain and futile as those 
positive precepts which we call sorcery. The two 
things are merely opposite sides or poles of one great 
disastrous fallacy, a mistaken conception of the asso- 
ciation of ideas. Of that fallacy, sorcery is the positive, 
and taboo the negative pole. If we give the general 
name of magic to the whole erroneous system, both 
theoretical and practical, then taboo may be defined 
as the negative side of practical magic. To put this 
in tabular form: 


MAGICAL TELEPATHY 225 


Magic 


Theoretical Practical 
(Magic as a pseudo-science) (Magic as a pseudo-art) 


Positive Magic Negative Magic 


or or 
Sorcery Taboo 
LXXXVIII 


MAGICAL TELEPATHY! 


Whatever doubts science may entertain as to the 
possibility of action at a distance, magic has none; 
faith in telepathy is one of its first principles. A 
modern advocate of the influence of mind upon mind 
at a distance would have no difficulty in convincing 
a savage ; the savage believed in it long ago, and what 
is more, he acted on his belief with a logical consist- 
ency such as his civilized brother in the faith has not 
yet, so far as I am aware, exhibited in his conduct. 
For the savage is convinced not only that magical 
ceremonies affect persons and things afar off, but that 
the simplest acts of daily life may do so too. Hence 
on important occasions the behaviour of friends and 
relations at a distance is often regulated by a more or 
less elaborate code of rules, the neglect of which by 
the one set of persons would, it is supposed, entail 
misfortune or even death on the absent ones. In 
particular when a party of men are out hunting or fight- 
ing, their kinsfolk at home are often expected to do 
certain things or to abstain from doing certain others, 
for the sake of ensuring the safety and success of the 
distant hunters or warriors. 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 119-120. 
Q 


ee Rae me LO ha! Ft f= 
: eee» y 


226 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


LXXXIX 


THE PROHIBITION OF IMAGES AMONG 
THE HEBREWS 3 


We may suspect that the use which magicians make 
of images in order to compel the beings represented 
by them, whether animals or men or gods, to work 
their will, was the real practice which the Hebrew 
legislator had in view when he penned the command- 
ment: “ Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven 
image, or any likeness of any thing that is in heaven 
above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the 
water under the earth: thou shalt not bow down thy- 
self to them, nor serve them.” The theory of Renan, 
that this commandment had no deeper foundation 
than the reluctance which a tribe of nomadic herdsmen 
would naturally feel to encumber themselves and their 
beasts with a useless load of images on their wander- 
ings, seems scarcely a sufficient explanation. Why 
solemnly forbid men to do what a simple regard for 
their own personal comfort and convenience would of 
itself prevent them from doing? On the other hand, 
magicians of old really believed that by their magical 
images, their ceremonies and incantations, they could 
compel the gods to obey them; and in ancient Egypt, 
for example, this belief did not remain a mere theo- 
logical dogma, it was logically carried out in practice 
for the purpose of wringing from a deity boons which 
he would only stand and deliver on compulsion. These 
black arts of their powerful neighbours were doubtless 
familiar to the Hebrews, and may have found many 


1 Totemism and Exogamy’, vol, iv. p. 26. 


THE RISE OF PUBLIC MAGICIANS 227 


imitators among them. But to deeply religious minds, 
imbued with a profound sense of the divine majesty and 
goodness, these attempts to take heaven by storm 
must have appeared the rankest blasphemy and 
impiety ; we need not wonder therefore that a severe 
prohibition of all such nefarious practices should have 
found a prominent place in the earliest Hebrew code. 


XC 


BENEFITS ACCRUING FROM THE RISE 
OF PUBLIC MAGICIANS! 


In primitive society, where uniformity of occupa- 
tion is the rule, and the distribution of the community 
into various classes of workers has hardly begun, 
every man is more or less his own magician; he 
practises charms and incantations for his own good 
and the injury of his enemies. But a great step in 
advance has been taken when a special class of 
magicians has been instituted ; when, in other words, 
a number of men have been set apart for the express 
purpose of benefiting the whole community by their 
skill, whether that skill be directed to the healing of 
diseases, the forecasting of the future, the regulation 
of the weather, or any other object of general utility. 
The impotence of the means adopted by most of 
these practitioners to accomplish their ends ought not 
to blind us to the immense importance of the institution 
itself. Here is a body of men relieved, at least in the 
higher stages of savagery, from the need of earning 
their livelihood by hard manual toil, and allowed, nay, 
expected and encouraged, to prosecute researches into 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 245-247. 


228 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the secret ways of nature. It was at once their duty 
and their interest to know more than their fellows, to 
acquaint themselves with everything that could aid 
man in his arduous struggle with nature, everything 
that could mitigate his sufferings and prolong his life. 
The properties of drugs and minerals, the causes of 
rain and drought, of thunder and lightning, the 
changes of the seasons, the phases of the moon, the 
daily and yearly journeys of the sun, the motions of 
the stars, the mystery of life, and the mystery of 
death, all these things.must have excited the wonder 
of these early philosophers, and stimulated them to 
find solutions of problems that were doubtless often 
thrust on their attention in the most practical form by 
the importunate demands of their clients, who ex- 
pected them not merely to understand but to regulate 
the great processes of nature for the good of man. 
That their first shots fell very far wide of the mark 
could hardly be helped. The slow, the never-ending 
approach to truth consists in perpetually forming and 
testing hypotheses, accepting those which at the time 
seem to fit the facts and rejecting the others. The 
views of natural causation embraced by the savage 
magician no doubt appear to us manifestly false 
and absurd; yet in their day they were legitimate 
hypotheses, though they have not stood the test of 
experience. Ridicule and blame are the just meed, 
not of those who devised these crude theories, but of 
those who obstinately adhered to them after better had 
been propounded. Certainly no men ever had stronger 
incentives in the pursuit of truth than these savage 
sorcerers. To maintain at least a show of knowledge 
was absolutely necessary ; a single mistake detected 
might cost them their life. This no doubt led them to 


THE MAGICIAN’S PROGRESS 229 


practise imposture for the purpose of concealing their 
ignorance; but it also supplied them with the most 
powerful motive for substituting a real for a sham 
knowledge, since, if you would appear to know any- 
thing, by far the best way is actually to know it. Thus, 
however justly we may reject the extravagant pre- 
tensions of magicians and condemn the deceptions 
which they have practised on mankind, the original 
institution of this class of men has, take it all in all, 
been productive of incalculable good to humanity. 
They were the direct predecessors, not merely of our 
physicians and surgeons, but of our investigators and 
discoverers in every branch of natural science. They 
began the work which has since been carried to such 
glorious and beneficent issues by their successors in 
_after ages; and if the beginning was poor and feeble, 
this is to be imputed to the inevitable difficulties which 
beset the path of knowledge rather than to the natural 
incapacity or wilful fraud of the men themselves. 


XCI 
THE MAGICIAN’S PROGRESS! 


We have now concluded our examination of the 
general principles of sympathetic magic. The 
examples by which I have illustrated them have been 
drawn for the most part from what may be called 
private magic, that is, from magical rites and incanta- 
tions practised for the benefit or the injury of indi- 
viduals. But in savage society there is commonly to 
be found in addition what we may call public magic, 
that is, sorcery practised for the benefit of the whole 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 214-219. 


230 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


community. Wherever ceremonies of this sort are. 
observed for the common good, it is obvious that the 
magician ceases to be merely a private practitioner 
and becomes to some extent a public functionary. 
The development of such a class of functionaries is of 
great importance for the political as well as the religious 
evolution of society. For when the welfare of the tribe 
is supposed to depend on the performance of these 
magical rites, the magician rises into a position of 
much influence and repute, and may readily acquire 
the rank and authority of a chief or king. The 
profession accordingly draws into its ranks some of 
the ablest and most ambitious men of the tribe, because 
it holds out to them a prospect of honour, wealth, and 
power such as hardly any other career could offer. 
The acuter minds perceive how easy it is to dupe 
their weaker brother and to play on his superstition 
for their own advantage. Not that the sorcerer is 
always a knave and impostor; he is often sincerely 
convinced that he really possesses those wonderful 
powers which the credulity of his fellows ascribes to 
him. But the more sagacious he is, the more likely 
he is to see through the fallacies which impose on 
duller wits. Thus the ablest members of the profession 
must tend to be more or less conscious deceivers ; and 
it is just these men who in virtue of their superior 
ability will generally come to the top and win for 
themselves positions of the highest dignity and the 
most commanding authority. The pitfalls which beset 
the path of the professional sorcerer are many, and as 
a rule only the man of coolest head and sharpest wit 
will be able to steer his way through them safely. 
For it must always be remembered that every single 
profession and claim put forward by the magician as 


THE MAGICIAN’S PROGRESS 231 


such is false; not one of them can be maintained 
without deception, conscious or unconscious. Accord- 
ingly the sorcerer who sincerely believes in his own 
extravagant pretensions is in far greater peril and is 
much more likely to be cut short in his career than 
the deliberate impostor. The honest wizard always 
expects that his charms and incantations will produce 
their supposed effect; and when they fail, not only 
really, as they always do, but conspicuously and 
disastrously, as they often do, he is taken aback: he 
is not, like his knavish colleague, ready with a plausible 
excuse to account for the failure, and before he can 
find one he may be knocked on the head by his dis- 
appointed and angry employers. 

The general result is that at this stage of social 
evolution the supreme power tends to fall into the 
hands of men of the keenest intelligence and the most 
unscrupulous character. If we could balance the harm 
they do by their knavery against the benefits they 
confer by their superior sagacity, it might well be 
found that the good greatly outweighed the evil. 
For more mischief has probably been wrought in the 
world by honest fools in high places than by intelligent 
rascals. Once your shrewd rogue has attained the 
height of his ambition, and has no longer any selfish 
end to further, he may, and often does, turn his 
talents, his experience, his resources, to the service of 
the public. Many men who have been least scrupu- 
lous in the acquisition of power have been most 
beneficent in the use of it, whether the power they 
aimed at and won was that of wealth, political 
authority, or what not. In the field of politics the 
wily intriguer, the ruthless victor, may end by being 
a wise and magnanimous ruler, blessed in his lifetime, 


232 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


lamented at his death, admired and applauded by 
posterity. Such men, to take two of the most con- 
spicuous instances, were Julius Caesar and Augustus. 
But once a fool always a fool, and the greater the 
power in his hands the more disastrous is likely to be 
the use he makes of it. The heaviest calamity in 
English history, the breach with America, might 
never have occurred if George the Third had not been 
an honest dullard. 

Thus, so far as the public profession of magic 
affected the constitution of savage society, it tended 
to place the control of affairs in the hands of the ablest 
man: it shifted the balance of power from the many 
to the one: it substituted a monarchy for a democracy, 
or rather for an oligarchy of old men; for in general 
the savage community is ruled, not by the whole body 
of adult males, but by a council of elders. The 
change, by whatever causes produced, and whatever 
the character of the early rulers, was on the whole 
very beneficial. For the rise of monarchy appears to 
be an essential condition of the emergence of mankind 
from savagery. No human being is so hidebound by 
custom and tradition as your democratic savage; in 
no state of society consequently is progress so slow 
and difficult. The old notion that the savage is the 
. freest of mankind is the reverse of the truth. Heisa 
slave, not indeed to a visible master, but to the past, 
to the spirits of his dead forefathers, who haunt his 
steps from birth to death, and rule him with a rod of 
iron. What they did is the pattern of right, the un- 
written law to which he yields a blind unquestioning 
obedience. The least possible scope is thus afforded 
to superior talent to change old customs for the better. 
The ablest man is dragged down by the weakest and 


THE MAGICIAN’S PROGRESS 233 


dullest, who necessarily sets the standard, since he 
cannot rise, while the other can fall. The surface of 
such a society presents a uniform dead level, so far 
as it is humanly possible to reduce the natural 
inequalities, the immeasurable real differences of 
inborn capacity and temper, to a false superficial 
appearance of equality. From this low and stagnant 
condition of affairs, which demagogues and dreamers 
in later. times have lauded as the ideal state, the 
Golden Age, of humanity, everything that helps to 
raise society by opening a career to talent and pro- 
portioning the degrees of authority to men’s natural 
abilities, deserves to be welcomed by all who have the 
real good of their fellows at heart. Once these elevat- 
ing influences have begun to operate—and they can- 
not be for ever suppressed—the progress of civiliza- 
tion becomes comparatively rapid. The rise of one 
man to supreme power enables him to carry through 
changes in a single lifetime which previously many 
generations might not have sufficed to effect; and if, 
as will often happen, he is a man of intellect and 
energy above the common, he will readily avail 
himself of the opportunity. Even the whims and 
caprices of a tyrant may be of service in breaking the 
chain of custom which lies so heavy on the savage. 
And as soon as the tribe ceases to be swayed by the 
timid and divided counsels of the elders, and yields 
to the direction of a single strong and resolute mind, 
it becomes formidable to its neighbours and enters on 
a career of aggrandizement, which at an early stage of 
history is often highly favourable to social, industrial, 
and intellectual progress. For extending its sway, 
partly by force of arms, partly by the voluntary sub- 
mission of weaker tribes, the community soon acquires 


234 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


wealth and slaves, both of which, by relieving some 
classes from the perpetual struggle for a bare sub- 
sistence, afford them an opportunity of devoting them- 
selves to that disinterested pursuit of knowledge which 
is the noblest and most powerful instrument to 
ameliorate the lot of man. 

Intellectual progress, which reveals itself in the 
growth of art and science and the spread of more 
liberal views, cannot be dissociated from industrial or 
economic progress, and that in its turn receives an 
immense impulse from conquest and empire. It is no 
mere accident that the most vehement outbursts of 
activity of the human mind have followed close on the 
heels of victory, and that the great conquering races 
of the world have commonly done most to advance 
and spread civilization, thus healing in peace the 
wounds they inflicted in war. The Babylonians, the 
Greeks, the Romans, the Arabs are our witnesses in 
the past : we may yet live to see a similar. outburst in 
Japan. Nor, to remount the stream of history to its 
sources, is it an accident that all the first great strides 
towards civilization have been made under despotic 
and theocratic governments, like those of Egypt, 
Babylon, and Peru, where the supreme ruler claimed 
and received the servile allegiance of his subjects in 
the double character of a king and a god. It is hardly 
too much to say that at this early epoch despotism is 
the best friend of humanity and, paradoxical as it 
may sound, of liberty. For, after all, there is more 
liberty in the best sense — liberty to think our own 
thoughts and to fashion our own destinies — under 
the most absolute despotism, the most grinding 
tyranny, than under the apparent freedom of savage 
life, where the individual’s lot is cast from the 


THE REAL LEADERS OF MANKIND 235 


cradle to the grave in the iron mould of hereditary 
custom. 

So far, therefore, as the public profession of magic 
has been one of the roads by which the ablest men 
have passed to supreme power, it has contributed to 
emancipate mankind from the thraldom of tradition 
_and to elevate them into a larger, freer life, with a 
broader outlook on the world. This is no small 
service rendered to humanity. And when we 
remember further that in another direction magic has 
paved the way for science, we are forced to admit that 
if the black art has done much evil, it has also been the 
source of much good; that if it is the child of error, 
it has yet been the mother of freedom and truth. 


XCII 


THE REAL LEADERS OF MANKIND? 


If we ask how it happens that superstitions linger 
among a people who in general have reached a higher 
level of culture, the answer is to be found in the 
natural, universal, and ineradicable inequality of 
men. Not only are different races differently endowed 
in respect of intelligence, courage, industry, and so 
forth, but within the same nation men of the same 
generation differ enormously in inborn capacity and 
worth. No abstract doctrine is more false and 
mischievous than that of the natural equality of men. 
It is true that the legislator must treat men as if they 
were equal, because laws of necessity are general 
and cannot be made so as to fit the infinite variety 
of individual cases. But we must not imagine that 


1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 166-168. 


236 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


because men are equal before the law they are therefore 
intrinsically equal to each other. The experience 
of common life sufficiently contradicts such a vain 
imagination. At school and at the universities, at 
work and at play, in peace and in war, the mental 
and moral inequalities of human beings stand out 
too conspicuously to be ignored or disputed. On the 
whole the men of keenest intelligence and strongest 
characters lead the rest and shape the moulds into 
which, outwardly at least, society is cast. As such 
men are necessarily few by comparison with the 
multitude whom they lead, it follows that the com- 
munity is really dominated by the will of an en- 
lightened minority even in countries where the ruling 
power is nominally vested in the hands of the numerical 
majority. In fact, disguise it as we may, the govern- 
ment of mankind is always and everywhere essentially 
aristocratic. No juggling with political machinery 
can evade this law of nature. However it may seem 
to lead, the dull-witted majority in the end follows 
a keener-witted minority. That is its salvation and 
the secret of progress. The higher human intelligence 
sways the lower, just as the intelligence of man gives 
him the mastery over the brutes. I do not mean 
that the ultimate direction of society rests with its 
nominal governors, with its kings, its statesmen, its 
legislators. The true rulers of men are the thinkers 
who advance knowledge; for just as it is through 
his superior knowledge, not through his superior 
strength, that man bears rule over the rest of the 
animal creation, so among men themselves it is 
knowledge which in the long run directs and controls 
the forces of society. Thus the discoverers of new 
truths are the real though uncrowned and unsceptred 


THE REAL LEADERS OF MANKIND 237 


kings of mankind; monarchs, statesmen, and law- 
givers are but their ministers, who sooner or later do 
their bidding by carrying out the ideas of these master 
minds. The more we study the inward workings of 
society and the progress of civilization, the more 
clearly shall we perceive how both are governed by 
the influence of thoughts which, springing up at 
first we know not how or whence in a few superior 
minds, gradually spread till they have leavened the 
whole inert lump of a community or of mankind. 
The origin of such mental variations, with all their 
far-reaching train of social consequences, is just as 
obscure as is the origin of those physical variations 
on which, if biologists are right, depends the evolution 
of species, and with it the possibility of progress. 
Perhaps the same unknown cause which determines 
the one set of variations gives rise to the other also. 
We cannot tell. All we can say is that on the whole 
in the conflict of competing forces, whether physical 
or mental, the strongest at last prevails, the fittest 
survives. In the mental sphere the struggle for 
existence is not less fierce and internecine than in the 
physical, but in the end the better ideas, which we 
call the truth, carry the day. The clamorous opposi- 
tion with which at their first appearance they are 
regularly greeted, whenever they conflict with old 
prejudices, may retard but cannot prevent their final 
victory. It is the practice of the mob first to stone 
and then to erect useless memorials to their greatest 
benefactors. All who set themselves to replace 
ancient error and superstition by truth and reason 
must lay their account with brickbats in their life and 
a marble monument after death. 


238 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


XCIII 
HUMAN GODS}? 


In savage or barbarous society there are often 
found men to whom the superstition of their fellows 
ascribes a controlling influence over the general course 
of nature. Such men are accordingly adored and 
treated as gods. Whether these human divinities 
also hold temporal sway over the lives and fortunes 
of their adorers, or whether their functions are purely 
spiritual and supernatural, in other words, whether 
they are kings as well as gods or only the latter, is 
a distinction which hardly concerns us here. Their 
supposed divinity is the essential fact with which we 
have to deal. In virtue of it they are a pledge and 
guarantee to their worshippers of the continuance 
and orderly succession of those physical phenomena 
upon which mankind depends for subsistence. Natur- 
ally, therefore, the life and health of such a god-man 
are matters of anxious concern to the people whose 
welfare and even existence are bound up with his; 
naturally he is constrained by them to conform to 
such rules as the wit of early man has devised for 
averting the ills to which flesh is heir, including the 
last ill, death. These rules are at bottom nothing but 
the maxims with which, on the primitive view, every 
man of common prudence must comply if he would live 
long in the land. But while in the case of ordinary 
men the observance of the rules is left to the choice of 
the individual, in the case of the god-man it is enforced 


1 The Golden Bough, Part Il. Taboo and the Perils of the Svul, 
PP: 419-421. 


HUMAN GODS 239 


under penalty of dismissal from his high station, or 
even of death. For his worshippers have far too 
great a stake in his life to allow him to play fast and 
loose with it. Therefore all the quaint superstitions, 
the old-world maxims, the venerable saws which the 
ingenuity of savage philosophers elaborated long 
ago, and which old women at chimney corners still 
impart as treasures of great price to their descendants 
gathered round the cottage fire on winter evenings— 
all these antique fancies clustered, all these cobwebs 
of the brain were spun about the path of the old king, 
the human god, who, immeshed in them like a fly 
in the toils of a spider, could hardly stir a limb for the 
threads of custom, “light as air but strong as links 
of iron’’, that crossing and recrossing each other in 
_an endless maze bound him fast within a network of 
observances from which death or deposition alone 
could release him. 

Thus to students of the past the life of the old 
kings and priests teems with instruction. In it was 
summed up all that passed for wisdom when the world 
was young. It was the perfect pattern after which 
every man strove to shape his life; a faultless model 
constructed with rigorous accuracy upon the lines 
laid down by a barbarous philosophy. Crude and 
false as that philosophy may seem to us, it would 
be unjust to deny it the merit of logical consistency. 
Starting from a conception of the vital principle as 
a tiny being or soul existing in, but distinct and separ- 
able from, the living being, it deduces for the practical 
guidance of life a system of rules which in general | 
hangs well together and forms a fairly complete and 
harmonious whole. The flaw—and it is a fatal one 
—of the system lies not in its reasoning, but in its 


240 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


premises ; in its conception of the nature of life, not in 
any irrelevancy of the conclusions which it draws from 
that conception. But to stigmatize these premises as 
ridiculous because we can easily detect their falseness, 
would be ungrateful as well as unphilosophical. 


XCIV 
COMPULSORY KINGSHIPS? 


In representing the succession to a throne as com- 
pulsory, certain stories may well preserve a reminis- 
cence of areal custom. To us, indeed, who draw our 
ideas of kingship from the hereditary and highly 
privileged monarchies of civilized Europe, the notion 
of thrusting the crown upon reluctant strangers or 
common citizens of the lowest rank is apt to appear 
fantastic and absurd. But that is merely because we 
fail to perceive how widely the modern type of king- 
ship has diverged from the ancient pattern. In early 
times the duties of sovereignty are more conspicuous 
than its privileges. Ata certain stage of development 
the chief or king is rather the minister or servant than 
the ruler of his people. The sacred functions which 
he is expected to discharge are deemed essential to the 
welfare, and even the existence, of the community, 
and at any cost some one must be found to perform 
them. Yet the burdens and restrictions of all sorts 
incidental to the early kingship are such that not merely 
in popular tales, but in actual practice, compulsion has 
sometimes been found necessary to fill vacancies, while 
elsewhere the lack of candidates has caused the office to 
fall into abeyance, or even to be abolished altogether. 


1 The Golden Bough, Part Ill. The Dying God, p. 135. 


THE DIVINITY OF KINGS 241 


And where death stared the luckless monarch in the 
face at the end of a brief reign of a few months or 
days, we need not wonder that gaols had to be swept 
and the dregs of society raked to find a king. 

Yet we should doubtless err if we supposed that 
under such hard conditions men could never be found 
ready and even eager to accept the sovereignty. 


XCV 
tHE DIVINITY OF KINGS * 


At a certain stage of early society the king or 
priest is often thought to be endowed with super- 
natural powers or to be an incarnation of a deity, and 
consistently with this belief the course of nature is 
supposed to be more or less under his control, and he 
is held responsible for bad weather, failure of the crops, 
and similar calamities. To some extent it appears 
to be assumed that the king’s power over nature, like 
that over his subjects and slaves, is exerted through 
definite acts of will ; and therefore if drought, famine, 
pestilence, or storms arise, the people attribute the 
misfortune to the negligence or guilt of their king, and 
punish him accordingly with stripes and bonds, or, 
if he remains obdurate, with deposition and death. 
Sometimes, however, the course of nature, while re- 
garded as dependent on the king, is supposed to be 
partly independent of his will. His person is con- 
sidered, if we may express it so, as the dynamical 
centre of the universe, from which lines of force 
radiate to all quarters of the heaven; so that any 
motion of his—the turning of his head, the lifting of 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 11. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 1-2. 
R 


242 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


his hand—instantaneously affects and may seriously 
disturb some part of nature. He is the point of sup- 
port on which hangs the balance of the world, and the 
slightest irregularity on his part may overthrow the 
delicate equipoise. The greatest care must, therefore, 
be taken both by and of him; and his whole life, 
down to its minutest details, must be so regulated that 
no act of his, voluntary or involuntary, may dis- 
arrange or upset the established order of nature. 


XCVI 
THE ANALOGY OF MAGIC TO SCIENCE? 


Wherever sympathetic magic occurs in its pure 
unadulterated form, it assumes that in nature one event 
follows another necessarily and invariably without 
the intervention of any spiritual or personal agency. 
Thus its fundamental conception is identical with that 
of modern science ; underlying the whole system is a 
faith, implicit but real and firm, in the order and uni- 
formity of nature. The magician does not doubt that 
the same causes will always produce the same effects, 
that the performance of the proper ceremony, accom- 
panied by the appropriate spell, will inevitably be 
attended by the desired result, unless, indeed, his in- 
cantations should chance to be thwarted and foiled by 
the more potent charms of another sorcerer. He suppli- 
cates no higher power : he sues the favour of no fickle 
and wayward being: he abases himself before no awful 
deity. Yet his power, great as he believes it to be, is 
by no means arbitrary and unlimited. He can wield 
it only so long as he strictly conforms to the rules of his 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i, pp. 220-222. 


THE ANALOGY OF MAGIC TO SCIENCE 243 


art, or to what may be called the laws of nature as 
conceived by him. To neglect these rules, to break 
these laws in the smallest particular is to incur failure, 
and may even expose the unskilful practitioner him- 
self to the utmost peril. If he claims a sovereignty 
over nature, it is a constitutional sovereignty rigor- 
ously limited in its scope and exercised in exact 
conformity with ancient usage. Thus the analogy 
between the magical and the scientific conceptions 
of the world is close. In both of them the succession 
of events is perfectly regular and certain, being deter- 
mined by immutable laws, the operation of which can 
be foreseen and calculated precisely ; the elements of 
caprice, of chance, and of accident are banished from 
the course of nature. Both of them open up a seem- 
ingly boundless vista of possibilities to him who knows 
the causes of things and can touch the secret springs 
that set in motion the vast and intricate mechanism of 
the world. Hence the strong attraction which magic 
and science alike have exercised on the human mind ; 
hence the powerful stimulus that both have given to ~ 
the pursuit of knowledge. They lure the weary 
inquirer, the footsore seeker, on through the wilderness 
of disappointment in the present by their endless 
promises of the future: they take him up to the top 
of an exceeding high mountain and show him, beyond 
the dark clouds and rolling mists at his feet, a vision 
of the celestial city, far off, it may be, but radiant with 
unearthly splendour, bathed in the light of dreams. 
The fatal flaw of magic lies not in its general 
assumption of a sequence of events determined by law, 
but in its total misconception of the nature of the 
particular laws which govern that sequence. If we 
analyse the various cases of sympathetic magic, we 


244 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


shall find, as I have already indicated, that they 
are all mistaken applications of one or other of two 
great fundamental laws of thought, namely, the asso- 
ciation of ideas by similarity and the association of 
ideas by contiguity in space or time: A mistaken 
association of similar ideas produces homoeopathic or 
imitative magic : a mistaken association of contiguous 
ideas produces contagious magic. The principles of 
association are excellent in themselves, and indeed 
absolutely essential to the working of the human mind. 
Legitimately applied they yield science; _ illegiti- 
mately applied they yield magic, the bastard sister 
of science. It is therefore a truism, almost a tautology, 
to say that all magic is necessarily false and barren ; 
for were it ever to become true and fruitful, it would 
no longer be magic but science. From the earliest 
times man has been engaged in a search for general 
rules whereby to turn the order of natural phenomena 
to his own advantage, and in the long search he has 
scraped together a great hoard of such maxims, some 
of them golden and some of them mere dross. The 
true or golden rules constitute the body of applied 
science which we call the arts; the false are magic. 


XCVII 
THE FALLACY OF MAGIC? 


The reader may well be tempted to ask, How was it 
that intelligent men did not sooner detect the fallacy 
of magic? How could they continue to cherish 
expectations that were invariably doomed to dis- 
appointment ? With what heart persist in playing 

1 The Golden Borgh, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i, pp. 242-243. 


THE FALLACY OF MAGIC 245 


venerable antics that led to nothing, and mumbling 
solemn balderdash that remained without effect ? 
Why cling to beliefs which were so flatly contradicted 
by experience ? How dare to repeat experiments that 
had failed so often? The answer seems to be that the 
fallacy was far from easy to detect, the failure by no 
means obvious, since in many, perhaps in most cases, 
the desired event did actually follow, at a longer or 
shorter interval, the performance of the rite which 
was designed to bring it about; and a mind of more 
than common acuteness was needed to perceive that, 
even in these cases, the rite was not necessarily the 
cause of the event. A ceremony intended to make the 
wind blow or the rain fall, or to work the death of an 
enemy, will always be followed, sooner or later, by the 
occurrence it is meant to bring to pass; and primitive 
man may be excused for regarding the occurrence as 
a direct result of the ceremony, and the best possible 
proof of its efficacy. Similarly, rites observed in the 
morning to help the sun to rise, and in spring to 
wake the dreaming earth from her winter sleep, will 
invariably appear to be crowned with success, at least 
within the temperate zones; for in these regions the 
sun lights his golden lamp in the east every morning, 
and year by year the vernal earth decks herself afresh 
with a rich mantle of green. Hence the practical 
savage, with his conservative instincts, might well 
turn a deaf ear to the subtleties of the theoretical 
doubter, the philosophic radical, who presumed to hint 
that sunrise and spring might not, after all, be direct 
consequences of the punctual performance of certain 
daily or yearly ceremonies, and that the sun might 
perhaps continue to rise and trees to blossom though 
the ceremonies were occasionally intermitted, or even 


246 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


discontinued altogether. These sceptical doubts would 
naturally be repelled by the other with scorn and 
indignation as airy reveries subversive of the faith 
and manifestly contradicted by experience. “ Can 
anything be plainer’, he might say, “ than that I 
light my twopenny candle on earth and that the sun 
then kindles his great fire in heaven? I should be 
glad to know whether, when I have put on my green 
robe in spring, the trees do not afterwards do the 
same? ‘These are facts patent to everybody, and on 
them I take my stand. I am a plain practical man, 
not one of your theorists and splitters of hairs and 
choppers of logic. Theories, and speculation, and all 
that, may be very well in their way, and I have not 
the least objection to your indulging in them, provided, 
of course, you do not put them in practice. But give 
me leave to stick to facts; then I know where I am.” 
The fallacy of this reasoning is obvious to us, because 
it happens to deal with facts about which we have 
long made up our minds. But let an argument of 
precisely the same calibre be applied to matters which 
are still under debate, and it may be questioned 
whether a British audience would not applaud it as 
sound, and esteem the speaker who used it a safe man 
—not brilliant or showy, perhaps, but thoroughly 
sensible and hard-headed. If such reasonings could 
pass muster among ourselves, need we wonder that 
they long escaped detection by the savage ? 


MAGIC OLDER THAN RELIGION 247 


XCVIII 
MAGIC OLDER THAN RELIGION } 


Though magic is thus found to fuse and amalgam- 
ate with religion in many ages and in many lands, 
there are some grounds for thinking that this fusion is 
not primitive, and that there was a time when man 
trusted to magic alone for the satisfaction of such 
wants as transcended his immediate animal cravings. 
In the first place, a consideration of the fundamental 
notions of magic and religion may incline us to surmise 
that magic is older than religion in the history of 
humanity. We have seen that, on the one hand, magic 
is nothing but a mistaken application of the very 
simplest and most elementary processes of the mind, 
namely, the association of ideas by virtue of resem- 
blance or contiguity; and that, on the other hand, 
religion assumes the operation of conscious or personal 
agents, superior to man, behind the visible screen of 
nature. Obviously the conception of personal agents 
is more complex than a simple recognition of the 
similarity or contiguity of ideas; and a theory which 
assumes that the course of nature is determined by 
conscious agents is more abstruse and recondite, and 
requires for its apprehension a far higher degree of 
intelligence and reflection, than the view that things 
succeed each other simply by reason of their con- 
tiguity or resemblance. The very beasts associate 
the ideas of things that are like each other or that 
have been found together in their experience; and 
they could hardly survive for a day if they ceased to 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 233-234. 


248 | MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


do so. But who attributes to the animals a belief 
that the phenomena of nature are worked by a multi- 
tude of invisible animals or by one enormous and 
prodigiously strong animal behind the scenes? It is 
probably no injustice to the brutes to assume that 
the honour of devising a theory of this latter sort 
must be reserved for human reason. Thus, if magic 
be deduced immediately from elementary processes of 
reasoning, and be, in fact, an error into which the 
mind falls almost spontaneously, while religion rests 
on conceptions which the merely animal intelligence 
can hardly be supposed to have yet attained to, it 
becomes probable that magic arose before religion in 
the evolution of our race, and that man essayed to 
bend nature to his wishes by the sheer force of 
spells and enchantments before he strove to coax and 
mollify a coy, capricious, or irascible deity by the soft 
insinuation of prayer and sacrifice. 


XCIX 
THE PASSAGE FROM MAGIC TO RELIGION! 


If an Age of Religion has thus everywhere, as I 
venture to surmise, been preceded by an Age of Magic, 
it is natural that we should inquire what causes have 
led mankind, or rather a portion of them, to abandon 
magic as a principle of faith and practice and to betake 
themselves to religion instead. When we reflect upon 
the multitude, the variety, and the complexity of the 
facts to be explained, and the scantiness of our informa- 
tion regarding them, we shall be ready to acknowledge 
that a full and satisfactory solution of so profound a 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 237-240. 


THE PASSAGE FROM MAGIC TO RELIGION 249 


problem is hardly to be hoped for, and that the most 
we can do in the present state of our knowledge is to 
hazard a more or less plausible conjecture. With all 
due diffidence, then, I would suggest that a tardy 
recognition of the inherent falsehood and barrenness 
of magic set the more thoughtful part of mankind to 
cast about for a truer theory of nature and a more 
fruitful method of turning her resources to account. 
The shrewder intelligences must in time have come to 
perceive that magical ceremonies and incantations did 
not really effect the results which they were designed 
to produce, and which the majority of their simpler 
fellows still believed that they did actually produce. 
This great discovery of the inefficacy of magic must 
have wrought a radical though probably slow revolu- 
tion in the minds of those who had the sagacity to 
make it. The discovery amounted to this, that men 
for the first time recognized their inability to mani- 
pulate at pleasure certain natural forces which hitherto 
they had believed to be completely within their control. 
It was a confession of human ignorance and weakness. 
Man saw that he had taken for causes what were no 
causes, and that all his efforts to work by means of 
these imaginary causes had been vain. His painful 
toil had been wasted, his curious ingenuity had been 
squandered to no purpose. He had been pulling at 
strings to which nothing was attached ; he had been 
marching, as he thought, straight to the goal, while in 
reality he had only been treading in a narrow circle. 
Not that the effects which he had striven so hard to 
produce did not continue to manifest themselves. 
They were still produced, but not by him. The rain 
still fell on the thirsty ground: the sun still pursued 
his daily, and the moon her nightly journey across the 


250 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


sky: the silent procession of the seasons still moved 
in light and shadow, in cloud and sunshine across the 
earth : men were still born to labour and sorrow, and 
still, after a brief sojourn here, were gathered to their 
fathers in the long home hereafter. All things indeed 
went on as before, yet all seemed different to him 
from whose eyes the old scales had fallen. For he 
could no longer cherish the pleasing illusion that it 
was he who guided the earth and the heaven in their 
courses, and that they would cease to perform their — 
great revolutions were he to take his feeble hand from 
the wheel. In the death of his enemies and his friends 
he no longer saw a proof of the resistless potency of his 
own or of hostile enchantments; he now knew that 
friends and foes alike had succumbed to a force 
stronger than any that he could wield, and in obedience 
to a destiny which he was powerless to control. 

Thus cut adrift from his ancient moorings and 
left to toss on a troubled sea of doubt and uncertainty, 
his old happy confidence in himself and in his powers 
rudely shaken, our primitive philosopher must have 
been sadly perplexed and agitated till he came to rest, 
as in a quiet haven after a tempestuous voyage, in a 
new system of faith and practice, which seemed to offer 
a solution of his harassing doubts and a substitute, 
however precarious, for that sovereignty over nature 
which he had reluctantly abdicated. If the great 
world went on its way without the help of him or his 
fellows, it must surely be because there were other 
beings, like himself, but far stronger, who, unseen 
themselves, directed its course and brought about 
all the varied series of events which he had hitherto 
believed to be dependent on his own magic. It was 
they, as he now believed, and not he himself, who 


THE PASSAGE FROM MAGIC TO RELIGION 251 


made the stormy wind to blow, the lightning to flash, 
and the thunder to roll; who had laid the foundations 
of the solid earth and set bounds to the restless sea 
that it might not pass; who caused all the glorious 
lights of heaven to shine; who gave the fowls of the 
air their meat and the wild beasts of the desert their 
prey ; who bade the fruitful land to bring forth in 
abundance, the high hills to be clothed with forests, 
the bubbling springs to rise under the rocks in the 
valleys, and green pastures to grow by still waters ; 
who breathed into man’s nostrils and made him live, 
or turned him to destruction by famine and pestilence 
and war. To these mighty beings, whose handiwork 
he traced in all the gorgeous and varied pageantry 
of nature, man now addressed himself, humbly 
confessing his dependence on their invisible power, 
and beseeching them of their mercy to furnish him 
with all good things, to defend him from the perils 
and dangers by which our mortal life is compassed 
about on every hand, and finally to bring his immortal 
spirit, freed from the burden of the body, to some 
happier world, beyond the reach of pain and sorrow, 
where he might rest with them and with the spirits 
of good men in joy and felicity for ever. 

In this, or some such way as this, the deeper 
minds may be conceived to have made the great 
transition from magic to religion. But even in them 
the change can hardly ever have been sudden ;_ prob- 
ably it proceeded very slowly, and required long ages 
for its more or less perfect accomplishment. For 
the recognition of man’s powerlessness to influence 
the course of nature on a grand scale must have been 
gradual; he cannot have been shorn of the whole 
of his fancied dominion at a blow. Step by step he 


252 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


must have been driven back from his proud position ; 
foot by foot he must have yielded, with a sigh, the 
ground which he had once viewed as his own. Now 
it would be the wind, now the rain, now the sunshine, 
now the thunder, that he confessed himself unable 
to wield at will; and as province after province of 
nature thus fell from his grasp, till what had once 
seemed a kingdom threatened to shrink into a prison, 
man must have been more and more profoundly 
impressed with a sense of his own helplessness and 
the might of the invisible beings by whom he believed 
himself to’ be surrounded. Thus religion, beginning 
as a slight and partial acknowledgement of powers 
superior to man, tends with the growth of knowledge 
to deepen into a confession of man’s entire and absolute 
dependence on the divine; his old free bearing is 
exchanged for an attitude of lowliest prostration 
before the mysterious powers of the unseen, and his 
highest virtue is to submit his will to theirs: /” da sua 
volontade é nostra pace. But this deepening sense of 
religion, this more perfect submission to the divine 
will in all things, affects only those higher intelligences 
who have breadth of view enough to comprehend the 
vastness of the universe and the littleness of man. 
Small minds cannot grasp great ideas; to their 
narrow comprehension, their purblind vision, nothing 
seems really great and important but themselves. 
Such minds hardly rise into religion at all. They 
are, indeed, drilled by their betters into an outward 
conformity with its precepts and a verbal profession 
of its tenets; but at heart they cling to their old 
magical superstitions, which may be discountenanced 
and forbidden, but cannot be eradicated by religion, 
so long as they have their roots deep down in the 


EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON BELIEF IN MAGIC 253 


mental framework and constitution of the great 
majority of mankind. 


C 


EFFECT OF THE VARIABILITY OF CLIMATE 
ON THE BELIEF IN MAGIC? 


A little reflection will probably convince us that 
the more variable the course of nature throughout 
the year, the more persistent probably will be man’s 
efforts to regulate it for his benefit, and the firmer 
will be his faith in his power todo so. In other words, 
the more marked the changes of the seasons, the 
greater will tend to be the prevalence of magic and 
the belief in its efficacy, though naturally that tendency 
may be counteracted by other causes. On the other 
hand, where nature is bounteous and her course is 
uniform or varies but little from year’s end to year’s 
end, man will neither need nor desire to alter it by 
magic or otherwise to suit his convenience. For he 
makes magic, just as he prays and sacrifices, in order 
to obtain what he has not got; if he already possesses 
all he wants, why should he exert himself? It is in 
times of need and distress rather than of abundance 
and prosperity that man betakes himself to the practice 
both of magic and of religion. Hence in some tropical 
regions of eternal summer, where moisture, warmth, 
and sunshine never fail, where the trees are always 
green and fruits always hang from the boughs, where 
the waters perpetually swarm with fish and the forests 
teem with an exuberance of animal life, ceremonies 
for the making of rain and sunshine and for the 
multiplication of edible beasts and plants are for 

1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 169-172. 


254 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the most part absent or inconspicuous. For example, 
we hear little or nothing of them, so far as I remember, 
among the Indians of the luxuriant forests of Brazil. 
Far otherwise is it with countries where a brief summer 
alternates with a chilly spring, a fickle autumn, and a 
long and rigorous winter. There of necessity man is 
put to all his shifts to snatch from a churlish nature 
boons that are at once evanescent and precarious. 
There, accordingly, that branch of magic which aims 
at procuring the necessaries of life may be expected 
to flourish most luxuriantly. 

To put it generally, the practice of magic for 
the control of nature will be found, on the whole, to 
increase with the variability and to decrease with the 
uniformity of the course of nature throughout the 
year. Hence the increase will tend to become more 
and more conspicuous as we recede from the equator, 
where the annual changes of natural conditions are 
much less marked than elsewhere: This general 
rule is no doubt subject to many exceptions which 
depend on local varieties of climate. Where the 
contrast between a wet and a dry season is sharply 
marked, as in the track of the monsoons, magic 
may well be invoked to secure the advantages or 
remedy the inconveniences of heavy rain or drought. 
But, on the whole, this department of magic, if not 


checked by civilization or other causes, would naturally. 


attain its highest vogue in the temperate and polar 
zones rather than in the equatorial regions; while, 
on the other hand, the branch of magical art which 
deals directly with mankind, aiming, for example, at 
the cure or infliction of disease, tends for obvious 
reasons to be diffused equally over the globe without 
distinction of latitude or climate. And the same 


Se ee = 


—s “= i" 


EFFECT OF CLIMATE ON BELIEF IN MAGIC 255 


causes which impel men to practise magic for the 
control of nature confirm their belief in its efficacy ; 
for the very changes which the magician seeks to 
bring about by his spells are silently wrought by the 
operation of natural law, and thus the apparent 
success .of his efforts greatly strengthens the wizard’s 
confidence in his imaginary powers. 

Nowhere, apparently, in the world are the alter- 
nations of the seasons so sudden and the contrasts 
between them so violent, nowhere, accordingly, is the 
seeming success of magic more conspicuous than in 
the deserts of Central Australia. The wonderful 
change which passes over the face of nature after the 
first rains of the season has been compared even by 
European observers to the effect of magic; what 
marvel, then, that the savage should mistake it for 
such in very truth? It is difficult, we are told, to 
conceive the contrast between the steppes of Australia 
in the dry and in the rainy season. In the dry season 
the landscape presents a scene of desolation. The 
sun shines down hotly on stony plains or yellow 
sandy ground, on which grow wiry shrubs and small 
tussocks of grass, not set closely together, as in moister 
lands, but straggling separately, so that in any patch 
the number of plants can be counted. The sharp, 
thin shadows of the wiry scrub fall on the yellow 
ground, which betrays no sign of animal life save for 
the little ant-hills, thousands of whose inmates are 
seen rushing about in apparently hopeless confusion, 
or piling leaves and seeds in regular order around the 
entrance to their burrows. A desert oak, as it is called, 
or an acacia tree, may here and there afford a scanty 
shade, but for weeks together there are no clouds to 
hide the brightness of the sun by day or of the stars 


256 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


by night. All this is changed when heavy rains have 
fallen and torrents rush down the lately dry beds of 
the rivers, sweeping along uprooted trees and great 
masses of tangled wrack on their impetuous current, 
and flooding far and wide the flat lands on either bank. 
Then what has been for months an arid wilderness is 
suddenly changed into a vast sheet of water. Soon, 
however, the rain ceases to fall and the flood subsides 
rapidly. For a few days the streams run, then dry 
up, and only the deeper holes here and there retain 
the water. The sun once more shines down hotly, and 
in the damp ground seeds which have lain dormant 
for months sprout and, as if by magic, the desert 
becomes covered with luxuriant herbage, and gay 
with the blossoms of endless flowering plants. Birds, 
frogs, lizards, and insects of all sorts may be seen and 
_ heard where lately everything was parched and silent. 
Plants and animals alike make the most of the brief 
time in which they can grow and multiply; the 
struggle for existence 1s all the keener because it is so 
short. If a young plant can strike its roots deep 
enough to reach the cool soil below the. heated surface, 
it may live ; if not, it must perish. Ifa young animal 
grows fast enough to be able to burrow while the banks 
of the water-hole in which it lives are still damp, it, 
too, stands a chance of surviving. Now it is just 
when there is promise of a good season that the natives 
of these regions are wont especially to perform their 
magical ceremonies for the multiplication of the plants 
and animals which they use as food. Can we wonder 
that the accomplishment of their wishes, which so 
soon follows, should appear to them a conclusive 
proof of the efficacy of their incantations? Nature 
herself seems to conspire to foster the delusion. 


THE RELIGION AND MAGIC OF THE SEASONS — 257 


CI 
THE RELIGION AND MAGIC OF THE SEASONS ! 


The spectacle of the great changes which annually 
pass over the face of the earth has powerfully im- 
pressed the minds of men in all ages, and stirred them 
to meditate on the causes of transformations so vast 
and wonderful. Their curiosity has not been purely 

disinterested ; for even the savage cannot fail to per- 
ceive how intimately his own life is bound up with 
the life of nature, and how the same processes which 
freeze the stream and strip the earth of vegetation 
menace him with extinction. At a certain stage of 
development men seem to have imagined that the 
means of averting the threatened calamity were in 
their own hands, and that they could hasten or retard 
the flight of the seasons by magic art. Accordingly 
they performed ceremonies and recited spells to make 
the rain to fall, the sun to shine, animals to multiply, 
and the fruits of the earth to grow. In course of time 
the slow advance of knowledge, which has dispelled 
so many cherished illusions, convinced at least the 
more thoughtful portion of mankind that the alter- 
nations of summer and winter, of spring and autumn, 
were not merely the result of their own magical rites, 
but that some deeper cause, some mightier power, 
was at work behind the shifting scenes of nature. 
They now pictured to themselves the growth and 
decay of vegetation, the birth and death of living 
creatures, as effects of the waxing or waning strength 
of divine beings, of gods and goddesses, who were 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. i. pp. 3-5. 
S 


258 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


born and died, who married and begot children, on 
the pattern of human life. 

Thus the old magical theory of the seasons was 
displaced, or rather supplemented, by a religious 
theory. For although men now attributed the annual 
cycle of change primarily to corresponding changes 
in their deities, they still thought that by performing 
certain magical rites they could aid the god, who was 
the principle of life, in his struggle with the opposing 
principle of death. They imagined that they could 
recruit his failing energies and even raise him from 
the dead. The ceremonies which they observed for 
this purpose were in substance a dramatic representa- 
tion of the natural processes which they wished to 
facilitate ; for it is a familiar tenet of magic that you 
can produce any desired effect by merely imitating it. 
And as they now explained the fluctuations of growth 
and decay, of reproduction and dissolution, by the 
marriage, the death, and the rebirth or revival of the 
gods, their religious or rather magical dramas turned 
in great measure on these themes. They set forth the 
fruitful union of the powers of fertility, the sad death 
of one at least of the divine partners, and his joyful 
resurrection. Thus a religious theory was blended 
with a magical practice. The combination is familiar 
in history. Indeed, few religions have ever succeeded 
in wholly extricating themselves from the old trammels 
of magic. The inconsistency of acting on two opposite 
principles, however it may vex the soul of the philo- 
sopher, rarely troubles the common man; indeed he 
is seldom even aware of it. His affair is to act, not to 
analyse the motives of his action. If mankind had 
always been logical and wise, history would not be a 
long chronicle of folly and crime. 


—— 


THE RELIGION AND MAGIC OF THE SEASONS _ 259 


Of the changes which the seasons bring with them, 
the most striking within the temperate zone are those 
which affect vegetation. The influence of the seasons 
on animals, though great, is not nearly so manifest. 
Hence it is natural that in the magical dramas designed 
to dispel winter and bring back spring the stress 
should be laid on vegetation, and that trees and plants 
should figure in them more prominently than beasts 
and birds. Yet the two sides of life, the vegetable 
and the animal, were not dissociated in the minds of 
those who observed the ceremonies. Indeed they 
commonly believed that the tie between the animal 
and the vegetable world was even closer than it really 
is; hence they often combined the dramatic repre- 
sentation of reviving plants with a real or a dramatic 


.union of the sexes for the purpose of furthering at the 


Same time and by the same act the multiplication of 
fruits, of animals, and of men. To them the principle 
of life and fertility, whether animal or vegetable, was 
one and indivisible. To live and to cause to live, to 
eat food and to beget children, these were the primary 
wants of men in the past, and they will be the primary 
wants of men in the future so long as the world lasts. 
Other things may be added to enrich and beautify 
human life, but unless these wants are first satisfied, 
humanity itself must cease to exist. These two things, 
therefore, food and children, were what men chiefly 
sought to procure by the performance of magical rites 
for the regulation of the seasons. 


260 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


CII 


THE CHANGES OF THE SEASONS IN GREEK 
MYTHOLOGY ? 


The Greek had no need to journey into far countries 
to learn the vicissitudes of the seasons, to mark the 
fleeting beauty of the damask rose, the transient glory 
of the golden corn, the passing splendour of the purple 
grapes. Year by year in his own beautiful land he 
beheld, with natural regret, the bright pomp of summer 
fading into the gloom and stagnation of winter, and year 
by year he hailed with natural delight the outburst 
of fresh life in spring. Accustomed to personify the 
forces of nature, to tinge her cold abstractions with 
the warm hues of imagination, to clothe her naked 
realities with the gorgeous drapery of a mythic fancy, 
he fashioned for himself a train of gods and goddesses, 
of spirits and elves, out of the shifting panorama of 
the seasons, and followed the annual fluctuations of 
their fortunes with alternate emotions of cheerfulness 
and: dejection, of gladness and sorrow, which found 
their natural expression in alternate rites of rejoicing 
and lamentation, of revelry and mourning. A con- 
sideration of some of the Greek divinities who thus 
died and rose again from the dead may furnish us 
with a series of companion pictures to set side by 
side with the sad figures of Adonis, Attis, and Osiris. 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. i. p. 2. 


THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE ON RELIGION 261 


CIII 
THE INFLUENCE OF NATURE ON RELIGION} 


I am more than ever persuaded that religion, like 
all other institutions, has been profoundly influenced 
by physical environment, and cannot be understood 
without some appreciation of those aspects of external 
nature which stamp themselves indelibly on the 
thoughts, the habits, the whole life of a people. It 
is a matter of great regret to me that I have never 
visited the East, and so cannot describe from personal 
knowledge the native lands of Adonis, Attis, and 
Osiris. But I have sought to remedy the defect by 
comparing the descriptions of eye-witnesses, and 
painting from them what may be called composite 
pictures of some of the scenes on which I have been 
led to touch in the course of my studies. I shall 
not have wholly failed if I have caught from my 
authorities and conveyed to my readers some notion, 
however dim, of the scenery, the atmosphere, the 
gorgeous colouring of the East. 


CIV 
THE CREATION OF THE WORLD ? 


The early philosophers who meditated on the 
origin of things may have pictured to themselves the 
creation or evolution of the world on the analogy of 
the great changes which outside the tropics pass over 


1 The Golden Bough, Part IV. 2 The Golden Bough, Part III. 
Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. i., Preface The Dying God, pp. 108-109. 
to the first edition, pp. v-vi. 


262 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the face of nature every year. In these changes it 
is not hard to discern or to imagine a conflict between 
two hostile forces or principles, the principle of con- 
struction or of life and the principle of destruction 
or of death, victory inclining now to the one and now 
to the other, according as winter yields to spring or 
summer fades into autumn. It would be natural 
enough to suppose that the same mighty rivals which 
still wage war on each other had done so from the 
beginning, and that the formation of the universe 
as it now exists had resulted from the shock of their 
battle. On this theory the creation of the world is 
repeated every spring, and its dissolution is threatened 
every autumn: the one is proclaimed by summer’s 
gay heralds, the opening flowers; the other is whispered 
by winter’s sad harbingers, the yellow leaves. Here 
as elsewhere the old creed is echoed by the poet’s 
fancy : 


‘* Non altos prima crescentis origine mundi 
Inluxisse dies aliumve habutsse tenorem 
Crediderim ;: ver tllud erat, ver magnus agebat 
Orbis, et hibernis parcebant flattbus Eurt, 

Cum primae lucem pecudes hausere, virumque 
Ferrea progenies duris caput extulit arvts, 
Inmissaeque ferae silvis et stdera caelo.” 


Thus the ceremonies which in many lands have 
been performed to hasten the departure of winter 
or stay the flight of summer are in a sense attempts 
to create.the world afresh, to “ re-mould it nearer to 
the Heart’s desire’’. But if we would set ourselves 
at the point of view of the old sages who devised means 
so feeble to accomplish a purpose so immeasurably 
vast, we must divest ourselves of our modern con- 
ceptions of the immensity of the universe and of the 
pettiness and insignificance of man’s place in it. We 


5 we eS ee) ee ae ee ee ee 


| 
. 


THE MAGIC SPRING 263 


must imagine the infinitude of space shrunk to a few 
miles, the infinitude of time contracted to a few 
generations. To the savage the mountains that 
bound the visible horizon, or the sea that stretches 
away to meet it, is the world’s end. Beyond these 
narrow limits his feet have never strayed, and even 
his imagination fails to conceive what lies across the 
waste of waters or the far blue hills. Of the future 
he hardly thinks, and of the past he knows only what 
has been handed down to him by word of mouth 
from his savage forefathers. To suppose that a world 
thus circumscribed in space and time was created by 
the efforts or the fiat of a being like himself imposes 
no great strain on his credulity ; and he may without 
much difficulty imagine that he himself can annually 
repeat the work of creation by his charms and in- 
cantations. And once a horde of savages had 
instituted magical ceremonies for the renewal or 
preservation of all things, the force of custom and 
tradition would tend to maintain them in practice 
long after the old narrow ideas of the universe had 
been superseded by more adequate conceptions, and 
the tribe had expanded into a nation. 


CV 
THE MAGIC SPRING? 


The general explanation which we have been led 
to adopt of these and many similar ceremonies is 
that they are, or were in their origin, magical rites 
intended to ensure the revival of nature in spring. 
The means by which they were supposed to effect 


* The Golden Bough, Part Il. The Dying God, pp. 266-271. 


‘. a 


264 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


this end were imitation and sympathy. Led astray 
by his ignorance of the true causes of things, primitive 
man believed that in order to produce the great 
phenomena of nature on which his life depended he 
had only to imitate them, and that immediately by a 
secret sympathy or mystic influence the little drama 
which he acted in forest glade or mountain dell, on 
desert plain or wind-swept shore, would be taken up 
and repeated by mightier actors on a vaster stage. 
He fancied that by masquerading in leaves and 
flowers he helped the bare earth to clothe herself with 
verdure, and that by playing the death and burial 
of winter he drove that gloomy season away, and 
made smooth the path for the footsteps of returning 
spring. 

If we find it hard to throw ourselves even in fancy 
into a mental condition in which such things seem 
possible, we can more easily picture to ourselves the 
anxiety which the savage, when he first began to 
lift his thoughts above the satisfaction of his merely 
animal wants and to meditate-on the causes of things, 
may have felt as to the continued operation of what we 
now call the laws of nature. Tous, familiar as we are 
with the conception of the uniformity and regularity 
with which the great cosmic phenomena succeed each 
other, there seems little ground for apprehension that 
the causes which produce these effects will cease to 
operate, at least within the near future. But this 
confidence in the stability of nature is bred only by 
the experience which comes of wide observation and 
long tradition ; and the savage, with his narrow sphere 
of observation and his short-lived tradition, lacks the 
very elements of that experience which alone could 
set his mind at rest in face of the ever-changing and 


THE MAGIC SPRING 265 


often menacing aspects.of nature. No wonder, there- 
fore, that he is thrown into a panic by an eclipse, and 
thinks that the sun or the moon would surely perish, 
if he did not raise a clamour and shoot his puny shafts 
into the air to defend the luminaries from the monster 
who threatens to devour them. No wonder he is 
terrified when in the darkness of night a streak of 
sky is suddenly illumined by the flash of a meteor, or 
the whole expanse of the celestial arch glows with the 
fitful light of the Northern Streamers. 

Even phenomena which recur at fixed and uniform 
intervals may be viewed by him with apprehension 
before he has come to recognize the orderliness of 
their recurrence. The speed or slowness of his 
recognition of such periodic or cyclic changes in 
nature will depend largely on the length of the par- 
ticular cycle. The cycle, for example, of day and 
night is everywhere, except in the polar regions, so 
short and hence so frequent that men probably soon 
ceased to discompose themselves seriously as to the 
chance of its failing to recur, though the ancient 
Egyptians daily wrought enchantments to bring 
back to the east in the morning the fiery orb which 
had sunk at evening in the crimson west. But it was 
far otherwise with the annual cycle of the seasons. 
-To any man a year is a considerable period, seeing 
that the number of our years is but few at the best. 
To the primitive savage, with his short memory and 
imperfect means of marking the flight of time, a year 
may well have been so long that he failed to recognize 
it as a cycle at all, and watched the changing aspects 
of earth and heaven with a perpetual wonder, alter- 
nately delighted and alarmed, elated and cast down, 
according as the vicissitudes of light and heat, of rain 


266 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


and drought, of plant and animal life, ministered to his 
comfort or threatened his existence. In autumn when 
the withered leaves were whirled about the forest by 
the nipping blast, and he looked up at the bare boughs, 
could he feel sure that they would ever be green again ? 
As day by day the sun sank lower and lower in the 
sky, could he be certain that the luminary would ever 
retrace his heavenly road? Even the waning moon, 
whose pale sickle rose thinner and thinner every 
night over the rim of the eastern horizon, may have 
excited in his mind a fear lest, when it had wholly 
vanished, there should be moons no more. 

These and a thousand such misgivings may have 
thronged the fancy and troubled the peace of the man 
who first began to reflect on the mysteries of the world 
he lived in, and to take thought for a more distant 
future than the morrow. It was natural, therefore, 
that with such thoughts and fears he should have done 
all that in him lay to bring back the faded blossom to 
the bough, to swing the low sun of winter up to his 
old place in the summer sky, and to restore its orbed 
fullness to the silver lamp of the waning moon. We 
may smile at his vain endeavours if we please, but 
it was only by making a long series of experiments, 
of which many were almost inevitably doomed to 
failure, that man learned from experience the futility 
of some of his attempted methods and the fruitfulness 
of others. After all, magical ceremonies are nothing 
but experiments which have failed, and which con- 
tinue to be repeated merely because the operator is 
unaware of their failure. With the advance of know- 
ledge these ceremonies either cease to be performed 
altogether or are kept up from the force of habit long 
after the intention with which they were instituted 


THE MAGIC SPRING 267 


has been forgotten. Thus fallen from their high - 
estate, no longer regarded as solemn rites on the 
punctual performance of which the welfare and even 
the life of the community depend, they sink gradually 
to the level of simple pageants, mummeries and 
pastimes, till in the final stage of degeneration they 
are wholly abandoned by older people, and, from 
having once been the most serious occupation of the 
sage, become at last the idle sport of children. It is 
in this final stage of obsolescence and decay that most 
of the old magical rites of our European forefathers 
linger on at the present day, and even from this their 
last retreat they are fast being swept away by the 
rising tide of those multitudinous forces, moral, 
intellectual, and social, which are bearing mankind 
onward to a new and unknown goal. We may feel 
some natural regret at the disappearance of quaint 
customs and picturesque ceremonies, which have 
preserved to an age often deemed dull and prosaic 
something of the flavour and freshness of the olden 
time, some breath of the springtime of the world ; 
yet our regret will be lessened when we remember 
that these pretty pageants, these now innocent diver- 
sions, had their origin in ignorance and superstition ; 
that if they are a record of human endeavour, they 
are also a monument of fruitless ingenuity, of wasted 
labour, and of blighted hopes; and that for all their 
gay trappings—their flowers, their ribbons, and their 
music—they partake far more of tragedy than of farce. 

The interpretation which, following in the footsteps 
of W. Mannhardt, I have attempted to give of these cere- 
monies has been not a little confirmed by the discovery 
that the natives of Central Australia regularly prac- 
tise magical ceremonies for the purpose of awakening 


268 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the dormant energies of nature at the approach of 
what may be called the Australian spring. And as 
the faith of the Australian savage in the efficacy of 
his magic rites is confirmed by observing that their 
performance is invariably followed, sooner or later, 
by that increase of vegetable and animal life which 
it is their object to produce, so, we may suppose, it 
was with European savages in the olden time. The 
sight of the fresh green in brake and thicket, of 
vernal flowers blowing on mossy banks, of swallows 
arriving from the south, and of the sun mounting 
daily higher in the sky, would be welcomed by them 
as so many visible signs that their enchantments were 
indeed taking effect, and would inspire them with a 
cheerful confidence that all was well with a world 
which they could thus mould to suit their wishes. 
Only in autumn days, as summer slowly faded, would 
their confidence again be dashed by doubts and mis- 
givings at symptoms of decay, which told how vain 
were all their efforts to stave off for ever the approach 
of winter and of death. 


CVI 
RANDOM SHOTS OF MAGIC? 


Magical rites may be compared to shots discharged 
at random in the dark, some of which by accident hit 
the mark. If the gunner learns to distinguish between 
his hits and his misses, he will concentrate his hitherto 
scattered fire in the right direction and accomplish 
his purpose. If he fails to make the distinction, he 
will continue his random discharges with as little 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. p. 219. 


MAGICAL RITES OF PASTORAL PEOPLE 269 


result as before. A scientific farmer is an artillery- 
man of the former sort; an Australian headman of 
the grass-seed totem is an artilleryman of the latter 
sort. It is the distinction between magic and science, 
between savagery and civilization. 


CVII 
MAGICAL RITES OF PASTORAL PEOPLE! 


Many rites which have hitherto been interpreted 
as a worship of cattle may have been in origin, if not 
always, nothing but a series of precautions, based on 
the theory of sympathetic magic, for the protection of 
the herds from the dangers that would threaten them 
through an indiscriminate use of their milk by every- 
body, whether clean or unclean, whether friend or 
foe. The savage who believes that he himself can 
be magically injured by ill-wishers through the secre- 
tions of his body naturally applies the same theory to 
his cattle and takes the same sort of steps to safeguard 
them as to safeguard himself. If this view is right, the 
superstitious restrictions imposed by pastoral peoples 
on the use of milk are analogous to the superstitious 
precautions which the savage adopts with regard to 
the disposal of his shorn hair, clipped nails, and other 
severed parts of his person. In their essence they 
are not religious but magical. Yet in time such 
taboos might easily receive a religious interpretation 
and merge into a true worship of cattle. For while 
the logical distinction between magic and religion 
is sharp as a knife-edge, there is no such acute and 
rigid line of cleavage between them _ historically. 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. iii. pp. 163-164. 


270 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


With the vagueness characteristic of primitive thought 
the two are constantly fusing with each other, like 
two streams, one of blue and one of yellow water, 
which meet and blend into a river that is neither 
wholly yellow nor wholly blue. But the historical 
confusion of magic and religion no more dispenses 
the philosophic student of human thought from the 
need of resolving the compound into its constituent 
parts than the occurrence of most chemical elements 
in combination dispenses the analytical chemist from 
the need of separating and distinguishing them. 
The mind has its chemistry as well as the body. Its 
elements may be more subtle and mercurial, yet even 
here a fine instrument will seize and mark distinctions 
which might elude a coarser handling. 


CVIII 


THE RELIGIOUS OR MAGICAL ORIGIN 
OF THE DRAMA! 


The dramatic performances of primitive peoples 
are often religious or perhaps still oftener magical 
ceremonies, and the songs or recitations which accom- 
pany them are spells or incantations, though the real 
character of both is apt to be overlooked by civilized 
man, accustomed as he is to see in the drama nothing 
more than an agreeable pastime or at best a vehicle 
of moral instruction. Yet if we could trace the drama 
of the civilized nations back to its origin, we might 
find that it had its roots in magical or religious ideas 
like those which still mould and direct the masked 
dances of many savages. Certainly the Athenians 


1 The Golden Bough, Part VI. The Scapegoat, pp. 384-388. 


my 
Pah 


RELIGIOUS OR MAGICAL ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA 271 


in the heyday of their brilliant civilization retained a 
lively sense of the religious import of dramatic per- 
formances; for they associated them directly with 
the worship of the vine-god Dionysus and allowed 
them to be enacted only during his festivals. In 
India, also, the drama appears to have been developed 
out of religious dances or pantomimes, in which the 
actors recited the deeds and played the parts of 
national gods and heroes. Hence it is at least a 
legitimate hypothesis that at Babylon the criminal, 
who masqueraded as a king and perished in that 
character at the Bacchanalian festival of the Sacaea, 
was only one of a company of actors, who figured 
on that occasion in a sacred drama of which the sub- 
stance has been preserved to us in the book of Esther. 

When once we perceive that the gods and goddesses, 
the heroes and heroines of mythology have been 
represented officially, so to say, by a long succession 
of living men and women who bore the names and 
were supposed to exercise the functions of these 
fabulous creatures, we have attained a point of vantage 
from which it seems possible to propose terms of peace 
between two rival schools of mythologists who have 
been waging fierce war on each other for ages. On 
the one hand, it has been argued that mythical beings 
are nothing but personifications of natural objects and 
natural processes; on the other hand, it has been 
maintained that they are nothing but notable men 
and women who in their lifetime, for one reason or 
another, made a great impression on their fellows, but 
whose doings have been distorted and exaggerated by 
a false and credulous tradition. These two views, it is 
now easy to see, are not so mutually exclusive as their 
supporters have imagined. The personages about 


272 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


whom all the marvels of mythology have been told 
may have been real human beings, as the Euhemer- 
ists allege ; and yet they may have been at the same 
time personifications of natural objects or processes, 
as the adversaries of Euhemerism assert. The 
doctrine of incarnation supplies the missing link that 
was needed to unite the two seemingly inconsistent 
theories. If the powers of nature or of a certain de- 
partment of nature be conceived as personified in a 
deity, and that deity can become incarnate in a man 
or woman, it is obvious that the incarnate deity is at 
the same time a real human being and a personification 
of nature. Thus, for example, Semiramis may have | 
been the great Semitic goddess of love, Ishtar or 
Astarte, and yet she may be supposed to have been 
incarnate in a woman or even in a series of real 
women, whether queens or harlots, whose memory 
survives in ancient history. Saturn, again, may have 
been the god of sowing and planting, and yet may 
have been represented on earth by a succession or 
dynasty of sacred kings, whose gay but short lives 
may have contributed to build up the legend of the 
Golden Age. The longer the series of such human 
divinities, the greater, obviously, the chance of their 
myth or legend surviving; and when, moreover, a 
deity of a uniform type. was represented, whether 
under the same name or not, over a great extent of 
country by many local dynasties of divine men or 
women, it is clear that the stories about him would 
tend still further to persist and be stereotyped. 

The conclusion which we have reached in regard 
to the legend of Semiramis and her lovers probably 
holds good of all the similar tales that were current in 
antiquity throughout the East; in particular, it may 


RELIGIOUS OR MAGICAL ORIGIN OF THE DRAMA 273 


be assumed to apply to the myths of Aphrodite and 
Adonis in Syria, of Cybele and Attis in Phrygia, and 
of Isis and Osiris in Egypt. If we.could trace these 
stories back to their origin, we might find that in 
every case a human couple acted year by year the 
parts of the loving goddess and the dying god. We 
know that down to Roman times Attis was personated 
by priests who bore his name ; and if within the period 
of which we have knowledge the dead Attis and the 
dead Adonis were represented only by effigies, we 
may surmise that it had not always been so, and that 
in both cases the dead god was once represented by a 
dead man. Further, the license accorded to the man 
who played the dying god at the Sacaea speaks 
strongly in favour of the hypothesis that before the 
incarnate deity was put to a public death he was in all 
cases allowed, or rather required, to enjoy the em- 
braces of a woman who played the goddess of love. 
The reason for such an enforced union of the human 
god and goddess is not hard to divine. If primitive 
man believes that the growth of the crops can be 
stimulated by the intercourse of common men and 
women, what showers of blessings will he not antici- 
pate from the commerce of a pair whom his fancy 
invests with all the dignity and powers of deities of 
fertility ? | 

Thus the theory of Movers, that at the Sacaea 
the human victim, the so-called Zoganes, represented 
a god and paired with a woman who personated a 
goddess, turns out to rest on deeper and wider 
foundations than that able scholar was aware of. 
He thought that the divine couple who figured by 
deputy at the ceremony were Semiramis and Sandan 


or Sardanapalus. It now appears that he was 
T 


274 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


substantially right as to the goddess; but we have 
still to inquire into the god. There seems to be no 
doubt that the name Sardanapalus is only the Greek 
way of representing Ashurbanipal, the name of the 
greatest and nearly the last king of Assyria. But 
the records of the real monarch which have come 
to light within recent years give little support to the 
fables that attached to his name in classical tradition. 
For they prove that, far from being the effeminate 
weakling he seemed to the Greeks of a later age, he 
was a warlike and enlightened monarch, who carried 
the arms of Assyria to distant lands and fostered at 
home the growth of science and letters. Still, though 
the historical reality of King Ashurbanipal is as well 
attested as that of Alexander or Charlemagne, it 
would be no wonder if myths gathered, like clouds, 
round the great figure that loomed large in the stormy 
sunset of Assyrian glory. Now the two features that 
stand out most prominently in the legends of Sar- 
danapalus are his extravagant debauchery and his 
violent death in the flames of a great pyre, on which 
he burned himself and his concubines to save them 
from falling into the hands of his victorious enemies. 
It is said that the womanish king, with painted face 
and arrayed in female attire, passed his days in the 
seclusion of the harem, spinning purple wool among 
his concubines and wallowing in sensual delights ; 
and that in the epitaph which he caused to be carved 
on his tomb he recorded that all the days of his life he 
ate and drank and toyed, remembering that life is 
short and full of trouble, that fortune is uncertain, and 
that others would soon enjoy the good things which 
he must leave behind. These traits bear little re- 
semblance to the portrait of Ashurbanipal either in 


SACRED DRAMAS AS MAGICAL RITES 275 


life or in death; for after a brilliant career of conquest 
the Assyrian king died in old age, at the height of 
human ambition, with peace at home and triumph 
abroad, the admiration of his subjects and the terror 
of his foes. But if the traditional characteristics of 
Sardanapalus harmonize but ill with what we know 
of the real monarch of that name, they fit well enough 
with all that we know or can conjecture of the mock 
kings, the human victims, who led a short life and a 
merry during the revelry of the Sacaea, the Asiatic 
equivalent of the Saturnalia. We can hardly doubt 
that for the most part such men, with death staring 
them in the face at the end of a few days, sought 
to drown care and deaden fear by plunging madly 
into all the fleeting joys that still offered themselves 
under the sun. When their brief pleasures and sharp 
sufferings were over, and their bones or ashes mingled 
with the dust, what more natural that on their tomb— 
those mounds in which the people saw, not untruly, 
the graves of the lovers of Semiramis—there should 
be carved some such lines as those which tradition 
placed in the mouth of the great Assyrian king, to 
remind the heedless passer-by of the shortness and 
vanity of life ? 


CIX 
SACRED DRAMAS AS MAGICAL RITES! 


At the great sanctuary of the goddess in Zela it 
appears ‘that her myth was regularly translated into 
action; the story of her love and the death of her 
divine lover was performed year by year as a sort of 
mystery-play by men and women who lived for a 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V1. The Scapegoat, pp. 373-375. 


276 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


season and sometimes died in the character of the 
visionary beings whom they personated. The inten- 
tion of these sacred dramas, we may be sure, was 
neither to amuse nor to instruct an idle audience, and 
as little were they designed to gratify the actors, to 
whose baser passions they gave the reins for a time. 
They were solemn rites which mimicked the doings 
of divine beings, because man fancied that by such 
mimicry he was able to arrogate to himself the divine 
functions and to exercise them for the good of his 
fellows. The operations of nature, to his thinking, 
were carried on by mythical personages very like 
himself ; and if he could only assimilate himself to 
them completely he would be able to wield all their 
powers. This is probably the original motive of most 
religious dramas or mysteries among rude peoples. 
The dramas are played, the mysteries are performed, 
not to teach the spectators the doctrines of their creed, 
still less to entertain them, but for: the purpose of 
bringing about those natural effects which they 
represent in mythical disguise; in a word, they are 
magical ceremonies and their mode of operation is 
mimicry or sympathy. We shall probably not err in 
assuming that many myths, which we now know only 
as myths, had once their counterpart in magic; in 
other words, that they used to be acted as a means of 
producing in fact the events which they describe in 
figurative language. Ceremonies often die out while 
myths survive, and thus we are left to infer the dead 
ceremony from the living myth. If myths are, in a 
sense, the reflections or shadows of men cast upon the 
clouds, we may say that these reflections continue to 
be visible in the sky and to inform us of the doings of 
the men who cast them, long after the men themselves 


ANCIENT SATURNALIAS 257, 


are not only beyond our range of vision but sunk 
beneath the horizon. 

The principle of mimicry is implanted so deep in 
human nature and has exerted so far-reaching an 
influence on the development of religion as well as of 
the arts that it may be well, even at the cost of a 
short digression, to illustrate by example some of the 
modes in which primitive man has attempted to apply 
it to the satisfaction of his wants by means of religious 
or magical dramas. For it seems probable that the 
masked dances and ceremonies, which have played a 
great part in the social life of savages in many quarters 
of the world, were primarily designed to subserve 
practical purposes rather than simply to stir the 
emotions of the spectators and to while away the 
languor and tedium of idle hours. The actors sought 
to draw down blessings on the community by mimick- 
ing certain powerful superhuman beings and in their 
assumed character working those beneficent miracles 
which in the capacity of mere men they would have 
confessed themselves powerless to effect. In fact, 
the aim of these elementary dramas, which contain 
in germ the tragedy and comedy of civilized nations, 
was the acquisition of superhuman power for the public 
good. 


CX 
ANCIENT SATURNALIAS} 


We have found evidence that festivals of the type 
of the Saturnalia, characterized by an inversion of 
social ranks and the sacrifice of a man in the character 
of a god, were at one time held all over the ancient 


1 The Golden Bough, Part VI. The Scapegoat, pp. 407-409. 


278 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


world from Italy to Babylon. Such festivals seem to 
date from an early age in the history of agriculture, 
when people lived in small communities, each presided 
over by a sacred or divine king, whose primary duty 
was to secure the orderly succession of the seasons, the 
fertility of the earth, and the fecundity both of cattle 
and of women. Associated with him was his wife or 
other female consort, with whom he performed some 
of the necessary ceremonies, and who therefore shared 
his divine character. Originally his term of office 
appears to have been limited to a year, on the con- 
clusion of which he was put to death; but in time he 
contrived by force or craft to extend his reign and 
sometimes to procure a substitute, who after a short 
and more or less nominal tenure of the crown was 
slain in his stead. At first the substitute for the divine 
father was probably the divine son, but afterwards 
this rule was no longer insisted on, and still later the 
growth of a humane feeling demanded that the victim 
should always be a condemned criminal. In this 
advanced stage of degeneration it is no wonder if the 
light of divinity suffered eclipse, and many should fail 
to detect the god in the malefactor. Yet the down- 
ward career of fallen deity does not stop here; even 
a criminal comes to be thought too good to personate 
a god on the gallows or in the fire; and then there 
is nothing left but to make up a rueful or grotesque 
efhgy, and so to hang, burn, or otherwise destroy the 
god in the person of this sorry representative. By 
this time the original meaning of the ceremony may be 
so completely forgotten that the puppet is supposed to 
represent some historical personage, who earned the 
hatred and contempt of his fellows in his life, and 
whose memory has ever since been held up to eternal 


i, 


CASTLES OF SAND 279 


execration by the annual destruction of his effigy. 
The figures of Haman, of the Carnival, and of Winter 
or Death which are or used to be annually destroyed 
in spring by Jews, Catholics, and the peasants of 
Central Europe respectively, appear to be all lineal 
descendants of those human incarnations of the powers 
of nature whose life and death were deemed essential 
to the welfare of mankind. But of the three the only 
one which has preserved a clear trace of its original 
meaning is the efhgy of Winter or Death. In the 
others the ancient significance of the custom as a 
magical ceremony designed to direct the course of 
nature has been almost wholly obscured by a thick 
aftergrowth of legend and myth. The cause of this 
distinction is that, whereas the practice of destroying 
an effigy of Winter or Death has been handed down 
from time immemorial through generations of simple 
peasants, the festivals of Purim and the Carnival, as 
well as their Babylonian and Italian prototypes, the 
Sacaea and the Saturnalia, were for centuries domesti- 
cated in cities, where they were necessarily exposed 
to those thousand transforming and disintegrating 
currents of speculation and inquiry, of priestcraft 
and policy, which roll their turbid waters through the 
busy haunts of men, but leave undefiled the limpid 
springs of mythic fancy in the country. 


CXI 
CASTLES OF SAND} 


The whole fabric of ancient mythology is so foreign 
to our modern ways of thought, and the evidence 


1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. i., Preface, 
p. xi. 


280 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


concerning it is for the most part so fragmentary, 
obscure, and conflicting that in our attempts to piece 
together and interpret it we can hardly hope to reach 
conclusions that will completely satisfy either our- 
selves or others. In this as in other branches of study 
it is the fate of theories to be washed away like 
children’s castles of sand by the rising tide of know- 
ledge, and [ am not so presumptuous as to expect or 
desire for mine an exemption from the common lot. 
I hold them all very lightly and have used them 
chiefly as convenient pegs on which to hang my 
collections of facts. For I believe that, while theories 
are transitory, a record of facts has a permanent value, 
and that as a chronicle of ancient customs and beliefs 
my book may retain its utility when my theories are 
as obsolete as the customs and beliefs themselves 
deserve to be. 


CXII 
THE STONE OF SISYPHUS! 


The longer I occupy myself with questions of 
ancient mythology the more diffident I become of 
success in dealing with them, and I am apt to think 
that we who spend our years in searching for solutions 
of these insoluble problems are like Sisyphus per- 
petually rolling his stone up hill only to see it revolve 
again into the valley, or like the daughters of Danaus 
doomed for ever to pour water into broken jars that 
can hold no water. If we are taxed with wasting 
life in seeking to know what can never be known, 
and what, if it could be discovered, would not be worth 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonts, Attis, Osires, vol. i., Preface to the 
third edition, pp. ix-x. 


THE RISE OF THE GODS, DECLINE OF MAGIC 281 


knowing, what can we plead in our defence? I fear, 
very little. Such pursuits can hardly be defended 
on the ground of pure reason. We can only say 
that something, we know not what, drives us to attack 
the great enemy Ignorance wherever we see him, 
and that if we fail, as we probably shall, in our attack 
on his entrenchments, it may be useless but it is not 
inglorious to fall in leading a Forlorn Hope. 


CXITII 


THE RISE OF THE GODS, DECLINE 
OF MAGIC! 


The conception of gods as superhuman beings 
endowed with powers to which man possesses nothing 
comparable in degree and hardly even in kind, has 
been slowly evolved in the course of history. By 
primitive peoples the supernatural agents are not 
regarded as greatly, if at all, superior to man; for 
they may be frightened and coerced by him into doing 
his will. At this stage of thought the world is viewed 
as a great democracy ; all beings in it, whether natural 
or supernatural, are supposed to stand on a footing 
of tolerable equality. But with the growth of his 
knowledge man learns to conceive more clearly the 
-vastness of nature and his own littleness and feebleness 
in presence of it. The recognition of his helplessness 
does not, however, carry with it a corresponding belief 
-in the impotence of those supernatural beings with 
which his imagination peoples the universe. On the 
contrary, it enhances his conception of their power. 
For the idea of the world as a system of impersonal 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 373-374- 


282 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


forces acting in accordance with fixed and invariable 
laws has not yet fully dawned or darkened upon 
him. The germ of the idea he certainly has, and 
he acts upon it, not only in magic art, but in much 
of the business of daily life. But the idea remains 
undeveloped, and so far as he attempts to explain the 
world he lives in, he pictures it as the manifestation 
of conscious will and personal agency. If then he 
feels himself to be so frail and slight, how vast and 
powerful must he deem the beings who control the 
gigantic machinery of nature! Thus as his old 
sense of equality with the gods slowly vanishes, he 
resigns at the same time the hope of directing the 
course of nature by his own unaided resources, that 
is, by magic, and looks more and more to the gods 
as the sole repositories of those supernatural powers 
which he once claimed to share with them. With 
the advance of knowledge, therefore, prayer and 
sacrifice assume the leading place in religious ritual ; 
and magic, which once ranked with them as a legitimate 


equal, is gradually relegated to the background and - 


sinks to the level of a black art. It is now regarded 
as an encroachment, at once vain and impious, on 
the domain of the gods, and as such encounters the 
steady opposition of the priests, whose reputation 
and influence rise or fall with those of their gods. 
Hence, when at a late period the distinction between 
religion and superstition has emerged, we find that 
sacrifice- and prayer are the resource of the pious 
and enlightened portion of the community, while 
magic is the refuge of the superstitious and ignorant. 
But when, still later, the conception of the elemental 
forces as personal agents is giving way to the recogni- 
tion of natural law ; then magic, based as it implicitly 


THE HOSTILITY OF RELIGION TO MAGIC 283 


is on the idea of a necessary and invariable sequence 
of cause and effect, independent of personal will, re- 
appears from the obscurity and discredit into which it 
had fallen, and, by investigating the causal sequences 
in nature, directly prepares the way for science. 
Alchemy leads up to chemistry. 


CXIV 
THE HOSTILITY OF RELIGION TO MAGIC! 


This radical conflict of principle between magic 
and religion sufficiently explains the relentless hostility 
with which in history the priest has often pursued 
the magician. The haughty self-sufficiency of the 
magician, his arrogant demeanour towards the higher 
powers, and his unabashed claim to exercise a sway 
like theirs could not but revolt the priest, to whom, 
with his awful sense of the divine majesty, and his 
humble prostration in presence of it, such claims and 
such a demeanour must have appeared an impious 
and blasphemous usurpation of prerogatives that belong 
to God alone. And sometimes, we may suspect, 
lower motives concurred to whet the edge of the 
priest’s hostility. He professed to be the proper 
medium, the true intercessor between God and man, 
and no doubt his interests as well as his feelings were 
often injured by a rival practitioner, who preached 
a surer and smoother road to fortune than the rugged 
and slippery path of divine favour. 

Yet this antagonism, familiar as it is to us, seems 
to have made its appearance comparatively late in the 
history of religion. At an earlier stage the functions 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 226-227. 


284 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


of priest and sorcerer were often combined or, to speak 
perhaps more correctly, were not yet differentiated 
from each other. To serve his purpose, man wooed 
the goodwill of gods or spirits by prayer and sacrifice, 
while at the same time he had recourse to ceremonies 
and forms of words which he hoped would of them- 
selves bring about the desired result without the help 
of god or devil. In short, he performed religious 
and magical rites simultaneously ; he uttered prayers 
and incantations almost in the same breath, know- 
ing or recking little of the theoretical inconsistency 
of his behaviour, so long as by hook or crook he 
contrived to get what he wanted. 


CXV 


THE BELIEF IN THE OMNIPRESENCE 
OF DEMONS} 


Bred in a philosophy which strips nature of 
personality and reduces it to the unknown cause of an 
orderly series of impressions on our senses, we find 
it hard to put ourselves in the place of the savage, to 
whom the same impressions appear in the guise of 
spirits or the handiwork of spirits. For ages the army 
of spirits, once so near, has been receding farther and 
farther from us, banished by the magic wand of 
science from hearth and home, from ruined cell and 
ivied tower, from haunted glade and lonely mere, 
from the riven murky cloud that belches forth the 
lightning, and from those fairer clouds that pillow 
the silver moon or fret with flakes of burning red the 
golden eve. The spirits are gone even from their 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V1. The Scapegoat, pp. 72-73. 


THE BELIEF IN THE OMNIPRESENCE OF DEMONS 285 


last stronghold in the sky, whose blue arch no longer 
passes, except with children, for the screen that hides 
from mortal eyes the glories of the celestial world. 
Only in poets’ dreams or impassioned flights of 
oratory is it given to catch a glimpse of the last flutter 
of the standards of the retreating host, to hear the 
beat of their invisible wings, the sound of their mocking 
laughter, or the swell of angel music dying away in 
the distance. 

Far otherwise is it with the savage. To his 
imagination the world still teems with those motley 
beings whom a more sober philosophy has discarded. 
Fairies and goblins, ghosts and demons, still hover 
about him both waking and sleeping. They dog his 
footsteps, dazzle his senses, enter into him, harass 
and deceive and torment him in a thousand freakish 
and mischievous ways. The mishaps that befall him, 
the losses he sustains, the pains he has to endure, 
he commonly sets down, if not to the magic of his 
enemies, to the spite or anger or caprice of the 
spirits. Their constant presence wearies him, their 
sleepless malignity exasperates him; he longs with 
an unspeakable longing to be rid of them altogether, 
and from time to time, driven to bay, his patience 
utterly exhausted, he turns fiercely on his persecutors 
and makes a desperate effort to chase the whole pack 
of them from the land, to clear the air of their swarming 
multitudes, that he may breathe more freely and go 
on his way unmolested, at least for a time. Thus it 
comes about that the endeavour of primitive people 
to make a clean sweep of all their troubles generally 
takes the form of a grand hunting out and expulsion 
of devils or ghosts. They think that if they can only 
shake off these their accursed tormentors, they will 


286 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


make a fresh start in life, happy and innocent; the 


tales of Eden and the old poetic Golden Age will come 
true again. , 


CXVI 
GUARDED SPEECH ! 


When we survey the many forms of speech that 
have been either avoided or adopted from super- 
stitious motives, we can hardly fail to be struck by 
the number of cases in which a fear of spirits, or 
of other beings regarded as spiritual and intelligent, 
is assigned as the reason for abstaining in certain 
circumstances from the use of certain words. The 
speaker imagines himself to be overheard and under- 
stood by spirits, or animals, or other beings whom 
his fancy endows with human intelligence ; and hence 
he avoids certain words and substitutes others in 
their stead, either from a desire to soothe and pro- 
pitiate these beings by speaking well of them, or 
from a dread that they may understand his speech 
and know what he is about when he happens to be 
engaged in that which, if they knew of it, would 
excite their anger or their fear. Hence the substituted 
terms fall into two classes according as they are 
complimentary or enigmatic; and these expressions 
are employed, according to circumstances, for different 
and even opposite reasons, the complimentary because 
they will be understood and appreciated, and the 
enigmatic because they will not. 

We can .now see why persons engaged in occupa- 
tions like fishing, fowling, hunting, mining, reaping, 


1 The Golden Bough, Part Il. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 416-418. 


GUARDED SPEECH 287 


and sailing the sea, should abstain from the use 
of the common language and veil their meaning in 
strange words and dark phrases. For they have 
this in common that all of them are encroaching 
on the domain of the elemental beings, the creatures 
who, whether visible or invisible, whether clothed in 
fur or scales or feathers, whether manifesting them- 
selves in tree or stone or running stream or breaking 
wave, or hovering unseen in the air, may be thought 
to have the first right to those regions of earth and 
sea and sky into which man intrudes only to plunder 
and destroy. Thus deeply imbued with a sense of 
the all-pervading life and intelligence of nature, 
man at a certain stage of his intellectual develop- 
ment cannot but be visited with fear or compunction, 
whether he is killing wild fowl among the stormy 
Hebrides, or snaring doves in the sultry thickets of 
the Malay Peninsula ; whether he is hunting the bear 
in Lapland snows or the tiger in Indian jungles, 
or hauling in the dripping net, laden with silvery 
herring, on the coast of Scotland; whether he is 
searching for the camphor crystals in the shade of the 
tropical forest, or extracting the red gold from the 
darksome mine, or laying low with a sweep of his 
sickle the yellow ears on the harvest field. 

In all these his depredations on nature, man’s first 
endeavour apparently is by quietness and silence to 
escape the notice of the beings whom he dreads ;_ but 
if that cannot be, he puts the best face he can on the 
matter by dissembling his foul designs under a fair 
exterior, by flattering the creatures whom he proposes 
to betray, and by so guarding his lips, that, though 
his dark ambiguous words are understood well enough 
by his fellows, they are wholly unintelligible to his 


288 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


victims. He pretends to be what he is not, and to be 
doing something quite different from the real business 
in hand. He is not, for example, a fowler catching 
pigeons in the forest; he is a Magic Prince or King 
Solomon himself inviting fair princesses into his 
palace tower or ivory hall. Such childish pretences 
suffice to cheat the guileless creatures whom the 
savage intends to rob or kill, perhaps they even 
impose to some extent upon himself; for we can 
hardly dissever them wholly from those forms of 
sympathetic magic in which primitive man seeks to 
effect his purpose by imitating the thing he desires to 
produce, or even by assimilating himself to it. It is 
hard indeed for us to conceive the mental state of a 
Malay wizard masquerading before wild pigeons in 
the character of King Solomon; yet perhaps the make- 
believe of children and of the stage, where we see 
the players daily forgetting their real selves in their 
passionate impersonation of the shadowy realm of 
fancy, may afford us some glimpse into the workings 
of that instinct of imitation or mimicry which is deeply 
implanted in the constitution of the human mind. 


CXVII 
ABBOT RICHALM ON DEVILS! 


The earliest of the Greek philosophers, Thales, 
held that the world is full of gods or spirits ; and the 
same primitive creed was expounded by one of the 
latest pagan thinkers of antiquity. Porphyry declared 
that demons appeared in the likeness of animals, that 
every house and every body was full of them, and that 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V1. The Scapegoat, pp. 104-106. — 


ABBOT RICHALM ON DEVILS 289 


forms of ceremonial purification, such as beating the 
air and so forth, had no other object but that of driving 
away the importunate swarms of these invisible but 
dangerous beings. He explained that evil spirits 
delighted in food, especially in blood and impurities, 
that they settled like flies on us at meals, and that 
they could only be kept at bay by ceremonial observ- 
ances, which were directed, not to pleasing the gods, 
but simply and solely to beating off devils. His theory 
of religious purification seems faithfully to reflect the 
creed of the savage on this subject, but a philosopher 
is perhaps the last person whom we should expect to 
find acting as a mirror of savagery. 

It is less surprising to meet with the same venerable 
doctrine, the same world-wide superstition in the mouth 
of a mediaeval abbot; for we know that a belief in 
devils has the authority of the founder of Christianity 
and is sanctioned by the teaching of the church. 
No Esquimau on the frozen shores of Labrador, no 
Indian in the sweltering forests of Guiana, no cowering 
Hindoo in the jungles of Bengal, could well have a 
more constant and abiding sense of the presence of 
malignant demons everywhere about him than had 
Abbot Richalm, who ruled over the Cistercian 
monastery of Schénthal in the first half of the thir- 
teenth century. In the curious work to which he gave 
the name of Revelations, he set forth how he was daily 
and hourly infested by devils, whom, though he could 
not see, he heard, and to whom he imputed all the 
ailments of his flesh and all the frailties of his spirit. 
If he felt squeamish, he was sure that the feeling was 
wrought in him by demoniacal agency. If puckers 
appeared on his nose, if his lower lip drooped, the 


devils had again to answer for it; a cough, a cold in 
U 


290 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the head, a hawking and spitting, could have none but 
a supernatural and devilish origin. If, pacing in his 
orchard on a sunny autumn morning, the portly abbot 
stooped to pick up the mellow fruit that had fallen in 
_ the night, the blood that mounted to his purple face 
was sent coursing thither by his invisible foes. If the 
abbot tossed on his sleepless couch, while the moon- 
light, streaming in at the window, cast the shadows 
of the stanchions like black bars on the floor of his 
cell, it was not the fleas and so forth that kept him 
awake—oh no! ‘ Vermin’, said he sagely, “do not 
really bite’; they seem to bite indeed, but it is all 
the work of devils. Ifa monk snored in the dormitory, 
the unseemly noise proceeded not from him, but from 
a demon lurking in his person. Especially dangerous 
were the demons of intoxication. These subtle fiends 
commonly lodged at the taverns in the neighbouring 
town, but on feast days they were apt to slip through 
the monastery gates and -glide unseen among the 
monks seated at the refectory table, or gathered round 
the roaring fire on the hearth, while the bleak wind 
whistled in the abbey towers, and a more generous 
vintage than usual glowed and sparkled in the flagons. 
If at such times a jolly, rosy-faced brother appeared to 
the carnal eye and ear to grow obstreperous or maudlin, 
to speak thick or to reel and stagger in his gait, be sure 
it was not the fiery spirit of the grape that moved the 
holy man; it was a spirit of quite a different order. 
Holding such views on the source of all bodily and 
mental indisposition, it was natural enough that the 
abbot should prescribe remedies which are not to be 
found in the pharmacopoeia, and which would be 
asked for in vain at an apothecary’s. They consisted 
chiefly of holy water and the sign of the cross; this 


THE BELLS OF THE HIGH PRIEST 291 


last he recommended particularly as a specific for 
flea-bites. 

It is easy to suggest that the abbot’s wits were 
unsettled, that he suffered from hallucinations, and 
so forth. This may have been so; yet a mode of 
thought like his seems to be too common over a great 
part of the world to allow us to attribute it purely to 
mental derangement. In the Middle Ages, when the 
general level of knowledge was low, a state of mind 
like Richalm’s may have been shared by multitudes 
even of educated people, who have not, however, like 
him, left a monument of their folly to posterity. At 
the present day, through the advance and spread of 
knowledge, it might be difficult to find any person of 
acknowledged sanity holding the abbot’s opinions on 
the subject of demons ; but in remote parts of Europe 
a little research might show that the creed of Porphyry 
and Richalm is still held, with but little variation, by 
the mass of the people. 


CXVIII 
THE BELLS OF THE HIGH PRIEST! 


In the Priestly Code it is ordained that the priest’s 
_robe should be made all of violet, and that the skirts 
of it should be adorned with a fringe of pomegranates 
wrought. of violet and purple and scarlet stuff, with 
a golden bell between each pair of pomegranates. 
This gorgeous robe the priest was to wear when he 
ministered in the sanctuary, and the golden bells 
were to be heard jingling both when he entered into 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. iii. pp. 446-447, 480. 


"CO RT Ee SS eee 


292 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the holy place and when he came forth, lest he should 
die.1 

Why should the priest in his violet robe, with the 
fringe of gay pomegranates dangling at his heels, 
fear to die if the golden bells were not heard to 
jingle, both when he went into, and when he came 
forth from, the holy place? The most probable 
answer seems to be that the chiming of the holy bells 
was thought to drive far off the envious and wicked 
spirits who lurked about the door of the sanctuary, 
ready to pounce on and carry off the richly apparelled 
minister as he stepped across the threshold in the 
discharge of his sacred office. At least this view, 
which has found favour with some modern scholars, 
is strongly supported by analogy; for it has been a 
common opinion, from the days of antiquity down- 
wards, that demons and ghosts can be put to flight 
by the sound of metal, whether it be the musical 
jingle of little bells, the deep-mouthed clangour of 
great bells, the shrill clash of cymbals, the booming 
of gongs, or the simple clink and clank of plates of 
bronze or iron knocked together or struck with 
hammers or sticks. Hence in rites of exorcism it 
has often been customary for the celebrant either to 
ring a bell which he holds in his hand, or to wear — 
attached to some part of his person a whole nest of 
bells, which jingle at every movement he makes. . . . 

These instances may suffice to show how wide- 
spread has been the use of bells in magical or religious 
rites, and how general has been the belief that their 
tinkle has power to banish demons. From a few of 
the examples which I have cited it appears that some- 
times the sound of bells is supposed, not so much to 


1 Exodus xxviii, 31-35. 


THE SOUND OF CHURCH BELLS 293 


repel evil spirits, as to attract the attention of good or 
guardian spirits, but on the whole the attractive force 
of these musical instruments in primitive ritual is far 
less conspicuous than the repulsive. The use of bells 
for the purpose of attraction rather than of repulsion 
may correspond to that more advanced stage of 
religious consciousness when the fear of evil is out- 
weighed by trust in the good, when the desire of pious 
hearts is. not so much to flee from the Devil as to draw 
near to God. In one way or another the practices 
and beliefs I have collected may serve to illustrate 
and perhaps to explain the Jewish custom from which 
we started, whether it be that the priest in his violet 
robe, as he crossed the threshold of the sanctuary, was 
believed to repel the assaults of demons or to attract 
the attention of the deity by the chime and jingle of 
the golden bells. 


CXIX 
THE SOUND OF CHURCH BELLS}? 


In a famous passage of the Purgatory Dante has 
_ beautifully applied the conception of the Passing Bell 
to the sound of the Vesper Bell heard afar off by 
voyagers at sea, as if the bell were tolling for the death 
of day or of the sun then sinking in the crimson west. 
Hardly less famous is Byron’s imitation of the passage : 


‘* Soft hour ! which wakes the wish and melts the heart 
Of those who sail the seas, on the first day 
When they from their sweet friends are torn apart ; 
Or fills with love the pilgrim on his way 
As the far bell of vesper makes him start, 
Seeming to weep the dying day’s decay.” 


And the same thought has been no less beautifully 
1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. iii. pp. 452-454. 


294 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


applied by our poet Gray to the curfew bell heard at 
evening among the solemn yews and elms of an 
English churchyard : 


‘* The curfew tolls the knell of parting day.” 


There is, indeed, something peculiarly solemnizing 
and affecting in the sound of church bells heard at 
such times and places; it falls upon the ear, in the 
language of Froude, like the echo of a vanished world. 
The feeling was well expressed by the American poet 
Bret Harte, when he heard, or rather imagined that 
he heard, the Angelus rung at evening on the site of 
the long-abandoned Spanish missien at Dolores in 
California : 


‘* Bells of the Past, whose long-forgotten music 
Still fills the wide expanse, 
Tingeing the sober twilight of the Present 
With colour of Romance ! 


‘* T hear your call, and see the sun descending 
On rock and wave and sand, 
As down the coast the Mission voices, blending, 
Girdle the heathen land. | 


‘ Within the circle of your incantation 
No blight nor mildew falls ; 
Nor fierce unrest, nor lust, nor low ambition 
Passes those airy walls. 


*“* Borne on the swell of your long waves receding, 
I touch the farther past,— 
I see the dying glow of Spanish glory, 
The sunset dream and last. 


‘**O solemn bells ! whose consecrated masses 
Recall the faith of old,— 
O tinkling bells! that lulled with twilight music 
The spiritual fold ! ”’ 


A like sense of the power of bells to touch the heart 
and attune the mind to solemn thought is conveyed in 


THE SOUND OF CHURCH BELLS 295 


a characteristic passage of Renan, in whom the austere 
convictions of the religious sceptic were happily 
tempered by the delicate perceptions of the literary 
artist. Protesting against the arid rationalism of the 
German theologian Feuerbach, he exclaims, “‘ Would 
to God that M. Feuerbach had steeped himself in 
_ sources of life richer than those of his exclusive and 
haughty Germanism! Ah! if, seated on the ruins of 
the Palatine or the Coelian Mount, he had heard the 
sound of the eternal bells lingering and dying over 
the deserted hills where Rome once was; or if, from 
the solitary shore of the Lido, he had heard the chimes 
of Saint Mark’s expiring across the lagoons; if he 
had seen Assisi and its mystic marvels, its double 
basilica and the great legend of the second Christ of 
the Middle Ages traced by the brush of Cimabue and 
Giotto ; if he had gazed his fill on the sweet far-away 
look of the Virgins of Perugino, or if, in San Domenico 
at Sienna, he had seen Saint Catherine in ecstasy, no, 
M. Feuerbach would not thus have cast reproach on 
one half of human poetry, nor cried aloud as if he 
would repel from him the phantom of Iscariot ! ”’ 
Such testimonies to the emotional effect of church 
bells on the hearer are not alien from the folk-lore of 
the subject ; we cannot understand the ideas of the 
people unless we allow for the deep colour which they _ 
take from feeling and emotion, least of all can we 
sever thought and feeling in the sphere of religion. 
There are no impassable barriers between the con- 
ceptions of the reason, the sensations of the body, and 
the sentiments of the heart; they are apt to melt and 
fuse into each other under waves of emotion, and few 
things can set these waves rolling more strongly than 
the power of music. A study of the emotional basis 


296 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


of folk-lore has hardly yet been attempted ; inquirers 
have confined their attention almost exclusively to its 
logical and rational, or, as some might put it, to 
its illogical and irrational elements. But no doubt 
great discoveries may be expected from the future 
exploration of the influence which the passions have 
exerted in moulding the institutions and destiny of 
mankind. 


CXX 
RELIGION AND MUSIC? 


In our own day a great religious writer, himself 
deeply sensitive to the witchery of music, has said that 
musical notes, with all their power to fire the blood 
and melt the heart, cannot be mere empty sounds 
and nothing more; no, they have escaped from some 
higher sphere, they are outpourings of eternal har- 
mony, the voice of angels, the Magnificat of saints. 
It is thus that the rude imaginings of primitive man 
are transfigured and his feeble lispings echoed with a 
rolling reverberation in the musical prose of Newman. 
Indeed the influence of music on the development of 
religion is a subject which would repay a sympathetic 
study. For we cannot doubt that this, the most 
intimate and affecting of all the arts, has done much 
to create as well as to express the religious emotions, 
thus modifying more or less deeply the fabric of belief 
to which at first sight it seems only to minister. The 
musician has done his part as well as the prophet and 
the thinker in the making of religion. Every faith 
has its appropriate music, and the difference between 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonis, Attis, Ostris, vol. i. pp. 53-54. 


’ 
a ee 


THE NATURE OF RELIGION 297 


the creeds might almost be expressed in musical 
notation. The interval, for example, which divides 
the wild revels of Cybele from the stately ritual of the 
Catholic Church is measured by the gulf which severs 
the dissonant clash of cymbals and tambourines from 
the grave harmonies of Palestrina and Handel. A 
different spirit breathes in the difference of the music. 


CXXI 


THE NATURE OF RELIGION 1 


There is probably no subject in the world about 
which opinions differ so much as the nature of 
religion, and to frame a definition of it which would 
satisfy every one is obviously impossible. All that 
a writer can do is, first, to say clearly what he 
means by religion, and afterwards to employ the word 
consistently in that sense throughout his work. By 
religion, then, I understand a propitiation or con- 
ciliation of powers superior to man which are believed 
to direct and control the course of nature and of human 
life. Thus defined, religion consists of two elements, 
a theoretical and a practical, namely, a belief in powers 
higher than man and an attempt to propitiate or please 
them. Of the two, belief clearly comes first, since we 
must believe in the existence of a divine being before 
we can attempt to please him. But unless the belief 
leads to a corresponding practice, it is not a religion 
but merely a theology ; in the language of St. James, 
“faith, if it hath not works, is dead, being alone’”’. In 
other words, no man is religious who does not govern 
his conduct in some measure by the fear or love of God. 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 222-225. 


iv Peay 
‘3 


298 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


On the other hand, mere practice, divested of all 
religious belief, is also not religion. Two men may 
behave in exactly the same way, and yet one of them 
may be religious and the other not. If the one acts 
from the love or fear of God, he is religious; if the 
other acts from the love or fear of man, he is moral or 
immoral according as his behaviour comports or con- 
flicts with the general good. Hence belief and practice 
or, in theological language, faith and works are equally 
essential to religion, which cannot exist without both 
of them. But it is not necessary that religious practice 
should always take the form of a ritual; that is, it 
need not consist in the offering of sacrifice, the recita- 
tion of prayers, and other outward ceremonies. Its 
aim is to please the deity, and if the deity is one who 
delights in charity and mercy and purity more than in 
oblations of blood, the chanting of hymns, and the 
fumes of incense, his worshippers will best please him, 
not by prostrating themselves before him, by intoning 
his praises, and by filling his temples with costly gifts, 
but by being pure and merciful and charitable towards 
men, for in so doing they will imitate, so far as human 
infirmity allows, the perfections of the divine nature. 
It was this ethical side of religion which the Hebrew 
prophets, inspired with a noble ideal of God’s goodness 
and holiness, were never weary of inculcating. Thus 
Micah says: ‘‘ He hath shewed thee, O man, what is 
good; and what doth the Lord require of thee, but to 
do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with 
thy God?” And at a later time much of the force 
by which Christianity conquered the world was drawn 
from the same high conception of God’s moral nature 
and the duty laid on men of conforming themselves to 
it. ‘Pure religion and undefiled”’, says St. James, 


THE NATURE OF RELIGION 299 


“before God and the Father is this, To visit the 
fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep 
himself unspotted from the world.” 

But if religion involves, first, a belief in super- 
human beings who rule the world, and, second, an 
attempt to win their favour, it clearly assumes that 
the course of nature is to some extent elastic or variable, 
and that we can persuade or induce the mighty beings 
who control it to deflect, for our benefit, the current 
of events from the channel in which they would other- 
wise flow. Now this implied elasticity or variability 
of nature is directly opposed to the principles of magic 
as well as of science, both of which assume that the 
processes of nature are rigid and invariable in their 
operation, and that they can as little be turned from 
their course by persuasion and entreaty as by threats 
and intimidation. The distinction between the two 
conflicting views of the universe turns on their answer 
to the crucial question, Are the forces which govern 
the world conscious and personal, or unconscious 
and impersonal? Religion, as a conciliation of the 
superhuman powers, assures the former member 
of the alternative. For all conciliation implies that 
the being conciliated is a conscious or personal agent, 
that his conduct is in some measure uncertain, and 
that he can be prevailed upon to vary it in the desired 
direction by a judicious appeal to his interests, his 
appetites, or his emotions. Conciliation is never 
employed towards things which are regarded as 
inanimate, nor towards persons whose behaviour in 
the particular circumstances is known to be deter- 
mined with absolute certainty. Thus in so far as 
religion assumes the world to be directed by conscious 
agents who may be turned from their purpose by 


300 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


persuasion, it stands in fundamental antagonism to 
magic as well as to science, both of which take for 
granted that the course of nature is determined, not 
by the passions or caprice of personal beings, but by 
the operation of immutable laws acting mechanically. 
In magic, indeed, the assumption is only implicit, 
but in science it is explicit. It is true that magic 
often deals with spirits, which are personal agents of 
the kind assumed by religion; but whenever it does 
sO in its proper form, it treats them exactly in the 
same fashion as it treats inanimate agents, that is, it 
constrains or coerces instead of conciliating or pro- 
pitiating them as religion would do. Thus it assumes 
that all personal beings, whether human or divine, 
are in the last resort subject to those impersonal 
forces which control all things, but which nevertheless 
can be turned to account by any one who knows how 
to manipulate them by the appropriate ceremonies 
and spells. 


7 CXXII 
THE TWO FORMS OF NATURAL RELIGION ? 


If we survey the natural religion of primitive 
peoples in all parts of the world, we shall probably 
discover that it everywhere assumes one of two forms, 
which, far from being incompatible with each other, 
are usually found to be embraced simultaneously and 
with equal confidence by the worshippers. One of 
them is the worship of nature, the other is the worship 
of the dead. I must say a few words about each, 

First, in regard to the worship of nature, I mean 
by that the worship of natural phenomena conceived 

+ The Worship of Nature, vol. i. pp. 17-18. 


THE TWO FORMS OF NATURAL RELIGION 301 


as animated, conscious, and endowed with both the 
power and the will to benefit or injure mankind. 
Conceived as such they are naturally objects of human 
awe and fear. Their life and consciousness are 
supposed to be strictly analogous to those of men; 
they are thought to be subject to the same passions 
and emotions, and to possess powers which, while 
they resemble those of man in kind, often far exceed 
them in degree. Thus to the mind of primitive man 
these natural phenomena assume the character of 
formidable and dangerous spirits whose anger it is 
his wish to avoid, and whose favour it is his interest 
to conciliate. To attain these desirable ends he 
resorts to the same means of conciliation which he 
employs towards human beings on whose goodwill 
he happens to be dependent; he proffers requests 
to them, and he makes them presents; in other 
words, he prays and sacrifices to them; in short, he 
worships them. Thus what we may call the worship 
of nature is based on the personification of natural 
phenomena. Whether he acts deliberately in pur- 
suance of a theory, or, as is more probable, instinctively 
in obedience to an impulse of his nature, primitive 
man at a certain stage, not necessarily the earliest, 
of His mental evolution attributes a personality akin 
to his own to all, or at all events to the most striking, 
of the natural objects, whether animate or inanimate, 
by which he is surrounded. This process of personi- 
fication appears to be the principal, though it is prob- 
ably not the only source of the worship of nature 
among simple folk. 

The other form of natural religion is the worship 
of the dead. While it differs from the worship of 
nature in itself and in the presuppositions on which 


302 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


it rests, it is perhaps equally diffused among men and 
has probably exerted at least an equal influence on 
their thought and institutions. The assumptions on 
which the worship of the dead is founded are mainly 
two: first, that the dead retain their consciousness 
and personality, and second, that they can powerfully 
influence the fortunes of the living for good or evil. 
To put it otherwise, the human soul is supposed to 
survive the death of the body and in its disembodied 
state to be capable of benefiting or injuring the sur- 
vivors. Thus a belief in immortality, or at all events 
in the survival of consciousness and personality for an 
indefinite time after death, is the keystone of that 
propitiation or worship of the dead which has played 
a most important part in history and has been fraught 
with the most momentous consequences for good or 
evil to humanity. 


CXXIII 
ANIMISM!? 


When man began seriously to reflect on the nature 
of things, it was almost inevitable that he should 
explain them on the analogy of what he knew best, 
that is, by his own thoughts, feelings, and emotions. 
Accordingly he tended to attribute to everything, 
not only to animals, but also to plants and inanimate 
objects, a principle of life like that of which he was 
himself conscious, and which, for want of a better 
name, we are accustomed to call a soul. This primi- 
tive philosophy is commonly known as animism. It 
is a childlike interpretation of the universe in terms 
of man. Whether or not it was man’s earliest attempt 

1 The Worship of Nature, vol. i. p. 6. 


THE STRATIFICATION OF RELIGION 303 


at solving the riddle of the world, we cannot say. 
The history of man on earth is long; the evidence 
of geology and archaeology appears to be continually 
stretching the life of the species farther and farther 
into the past. It may be that the animistic hypothesis 
is only one of many guesses at truth which man has 
successively formed and rejected as unsatisfactory. 
All we know is that it has found favour with many 
backward races down to our own time. 


CXXIV 
THE STRATIFICATION OF RELIGION } 


To prevent misunderstandings it may be well to 
add that what I have said as to the stratification 
of three great types of religion or superstition corre- 
sponding to three great types of society is not meant to 
sketch, even in outline, the evolution of religion as 
a whole. I by no means wish to suggest that the 
reverence for wild animals and plants, the reverence 
for domestic cattle, and the reverence for cultivated 
plants are the only forms of religion or superstition 
which prevail at the corresponding stages of social 
development ; all that I desire to convey is that they 
are characteristic of these stages respectively. The 
elements which make up any religious system are 
far too numerous and their interaction far too complex 
to be adequately summed up in a few simple formulas. 
To mention only a single factor of which I have taken 
no account in indicating roughly a certain corre- 
spondence between the strata of religion and of 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. ii. 
PP. 36-37. 


304 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


society, the fear of the spirits of the dead appears to 
have been one of the most powerful factors, perhaps, 
indeed, the most powerful of all, in shaping the course 
of religious evolution at every stage of social develop- 
ment from the lowest to the highest; and for that 
very reason it is not specially characteristic of any 
one form of society. And the three types of religion 
or superstition which I have selected as characteristic 
of three stages of society are far from being strictly 
limited each to its corresponding step in the social 
ladder. For example, although totemism, or a par- 
ticular species of reverence paid by groups of men to 
wild animals and plants, probably always originated 
in the hunting stage of society, it has by no means 
been confined to that primitive phase of human 
development but has often survived not only into the 
pastoral but into the agricultural stage, as we may 
see for example by the case of many tribes in Africa, 
India, and America; and it seems likely that a 
similar overlapping of the various strata takes place 
in every instance. In short, we cannot really dissect 
the history of mankind as it were with a knife into 
a series of neat sections each sharply marked off from 
all the rest by a texture and colour of its own; we 
may indeed do so theoretically for the convenience 
of exposition, but practically the textures interlace, 
the colours melt and run into each other by insensible 
gradations that defy the edge of the finest instrument 
of analysis which we can apply to them. It is a mere 
truism to say that the abstract generalizations of 
science can never adequately comprehend all the 
particulars of concrete reality. The facts of nature 
will always burst the narrow bonds of human theories. 


THE TRANSFORMATION OF TOTEMS INTO GODS 305 


CXXV 


THE TRANSFORMATION OF TOTEMS 
INTO GODS 1 


When, through the change of female to male 
kinship, and the settlement of a tribe in fixed abodes, 
society has ceased to present the appearance of a 
constantly shifting kaleidoscope of clans, and has 
shaken down into a certain stability and permanence 
of form, it might be expected that with the longer 
memory which accompanies an advance in culture the 
totems which have been generalized into the divinities 
of larger groups should no longer pass into oblivion, 
but should retain an elevated rank in the religious 
_hierarchy, with the totems of the subordinate tribal 
divisions grouped under them either as subordinate 
divinities or as different manifestations of the general 
tribal gods. This appears to have been the state of 
totemism in Polynesia, where geographical conditions 
favoured an isolation and hence a permanence of the 
local groups such as was scarcely attainable by savages 
on the open plains of Australia or the prairies and 
savannahs of America. Hence in Polynesia we find 
a considerable approximation to a totem Olympus. 
In Samoa there were general village gods as well as 
gods of particular families; and the same deity is 
incarnate in the form of different animals. One god, 
for example, is incarnate in the lizard, the owl, and 
the centipede; another in the bat, domestic fowl, 
pigeon, and prickly sea urchin; another in the bat, 
the sea-eel, the cuttle-fish, the mullet, and the turtle ; 


1 Totemism and Exogamy, vol. i. pp. 81-82. 
Xx 


306 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


another in the owl and the mullet ; another in the bird 
Porphyrts Samoensis, the pigeon, the rail-bird, and 
the eel; another in the turtle, sea-eel, octopus, and 
garden lizard. It seems a fair conjecture that such 
multiform deities are tribal or phratric totems, with 
the totems of the tribal or phratric subdivisions tacked 
on as incarnations. As the attribution of human 
qualities to the totem is of the essence of totemism, 
it is plain that a deity generalized from or including 
under him a number of distinct animals and plants 
must, as his animal and vegetable attributes contradict 
and cancel each other, tend more and more to throw 
them off and to retain only those human qualities 
which to the savage apprehension are the common 
element of all the totems whereof he is the composite 
product. In short, the tribal totem tends to pass into 
an anthropomorphic god. And as he rises more and 
more into human form, so the subordinate totems sink 
from the dignity of incarnations into the humbler 
character of favourites and clients; until, at a later 
age, the links which bound them to the god having 
wholly faded from memory, a generation of mytholo- 
gists arises who seek to patch up the broken chain 
by the cheap method of symbolism. But symbolism 
is only the decorous though transparent veil which a 
refined age loves to throw over its own ignorance of 
the past. 


CXXVI 


THE COMPLEX FABRIC OF RELIGION? 


Having said so much of the misty glory which the 
human imagination sheds round the hard material 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. i., 
Preface, pp. vii-ix. 


THE COMPLEX FABRIC OF RELIGION 307 


realities of the food supply, I am unwilling to leave 
my readers under the impression, natural but errone- 
ous, that man has created most of his gods out of 
his belly. That is not so, at least that is not my 
reading of the history of religions Among the 
visible, tangible, perceptible elements by which he is 
surrounded—and it is only of these that I presume 
to speak—there are others than the merely nutritious 
which have exerted a powerful influence in touching 
his imagination and stimulating his energies, and so 
have contributed to build up the complex fabric of 
religion. To the preservation of the species the 
reproductive faculties are no less essential than the 
nutritive ; and with them we enter on a very different 
sphere of thought and feeling, to wit, the relation 
of the sexes to each other, with all the depths of 
tenderness and all the intricate problems which that 
mysterious relation involves. The study of the various 
forms, some gross and palpable, some subtle and 
elusive, in which the sexual instinct has moulded the 
religious consciousness of our race, is one of the most 
interesting, as it is one of the most difficult and delicate, 
tasks which await the future historian of religion. 

But the influence which the sexes exert on each 
other, intimate and profound as it has been and must 
always be, is far indeed from exhausting the forces of 
attraction by which mankind are bound together in 
society. The need of mutual protection, the economic 
advantages of co-operation, the contagion of example, 
the communication of knowledge, the great ideas 
that radiate from great minds, like shafts of light 
from high towers,—these and many other things 
combine to draw men into communities, to drill 
them into regiments, and to set them marching on 


308 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the road of progress with a concentrated force to 
which the loose skirmishers of mere anarchy can 
never hope to oppose a permanent resistance. Hence 
when we consider how intimately humanity depends 
on society for many of the boons which it prizes most 
highly, we shall probably admit that of all the forces 
open to our observation which have shaped human 
destiny the influence of man on man is by far the 
greatest. If that is so, it seems to follow that among 
the beings, real or imaginary, which the religious 
imagination has clothed with the attributes of divinity, 
human spirits are likely to play a more important part 
than the spirits of plants, animals, or inanimate objects. 
I believe that a careful examination of the evidence, 
which has still to be undertaken, will confirm this 
conclusion ; and that if we could strictly interrogate 
the phantoms which the human mind has conjured 
up out of the depths of its bottomless ignorance and 
enshrined as deities in the dim light of temples, we 
should find that the majority of them have been 
nothing but the ghosts of dead men. However, to say 
this is necessarily to anticipate the result of future 
inquiry. 


CXXVII 


THE TRANSITION FROM ANIMISM TO 
MONOTHEISM 3 


The process of despiritualizing the universe, if I 
may be allowed to coin the phrase, has been a very 
slow and gradual one, lasting for ages. After men had 
peopled with a multitude of individual spirits every 
rock and hill, every tree and flower, every brook and 

1 The Worship of Nature, vol. i. pp. 9-10. 


TRANSITION FROM ANIMISM TO MONOTHEISM = 309 


river, every breeze that blew, and every cloud that 
flecked with silvery white the blue expanse of heaven, 
they began, in virtue of what we may call the economy 
of thought, to limit the number of the spiritual beings 
of whom their imagination at first had been so prodigal. 
Instead of a separate spirit for every individual tree, 
they came to conceive of a god of the woods in general, 
a Silvanus or what not ; instead of personifying all the 
winds as gods, each with his distinct character and 
features, they imagined a single god of the winds, an 
Aeolus, for example, who kept them shut up in bags 
and could let them out at pleasure to lash the sea into 
fury. To put it otherwise, the innumerable multitude 
of spirits or demons was generalized and reduced to a 
comparatively small number of deities ; animism was 
replaced by polytheism. The world was now believed 
to be governed by a pantheon of gods and goddesses, 
with his or her individual character, powers, and 
functions, in virtue of which they were entrusted with 
the control of particular departments of nature or of 
human life. By this generalization the instinctive 
craving of the mind after simplification and unification 
of its ideas received a certain measure of satisfaction ; 
but the satisfaction was only partial and temporary. 
The intelligence could not finally acquiesce in the 
conception of a number of separate and more or less 
independent deities, whose inclinations and activities 
‘constantly conflicted with each other. 

The same process of abstraction and generaliza- 
tion, the same desire for simplification and unification, 
which had evolved polytheism out of animism, now 
educed monotheism out of polytheism; the many 
gods, who had long divided among them the sway of 
the world, were deposed in favour of one solitary deity, 


310 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the maker and controller of all things. At first this 
one God was conceived, for example, by the Jews, as 
regulating the whole course of nature by a series of 
arbitrary acts of will and as liable to be deflected from 
his purposes by judicious appeals to his passions or his 
interests. But as time went on, and the uniformity of 
nature and the immutability of natural law were 
gradually recognized and firmly established by every 
advance of science, it was found necessary, or advis- 
able, to relieve the deity of his multifarious duties as 
the immediate agent of every event in the natural 
world, and to promote him, if I may say so, to a higher 
sphere in the supernatural world, as the creator or 
architect of the universe; while the management of 
affairs in this sublunary region was committed to his 
subordinate agents, the purely physical forces of 
attraction and repulsion, which modern science, if I 
apprehend it aright, appears to resolve into gravita- 
tion and electricity, or possibly into electricity alone. 
Thus the spiritualistic theory of the world has under- 
gone a process of simplification and unification 
analogous to that undergone by the materialistic 
theory: as the materialistic hypothesis has reduced 
the multitudinous forms of matter to one substance, 
hydrogen, so the spiritualistic hypothesis has reduced 
the multitude of spirits to one God. 


CXXVIII 
ISIS AND THE MADONNA? 


The Greeks conceived of Isis as a corn-goddess, 
for they identified her with Demeter. In a Greek 


+ The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. ii. pp. 117-119. 


ISIS AND THE MADONNA 311 


epigram she is described as “she who has given 
birth to the fruits of the earth’’, and ‘‘ the mother of 
the ears of corn’”’; and in a hymn composed in her 
honour she speaks of herself as ‘‘ queen of the wheat- 
field ’’, and is described as “charged with the care of 
the fruitful furrow’s wheat-rich path ’’. Accordingly, 
Greek or Roman artists often represented her with 
ears of corn on her head or in her hand. 

Such, we may suppose, was Isis in the olden time, 
a rustic Corn-Mother adored with uncouth rites by 
Egyptian swains. But the homely features of the 
clownish goddess could hardly be traced in the re- 
fined, the saintly form which, spiritualized by ages of 
religious evolution, she presented to her worshippers 
of after days as the true wife, the tender mother, the 
beneficent queen of nature, encircled with the nimbus 
of moral purity, of immemorial and mysterious 
sanctity. Thus chastened and transfigured she won 
many hearts far beyond the boundaries of her native 
land. In that welter of religions which accompanied 
the decline of national life in antiquity her worship 
- was one of the most popular at Rome and throughout 
the empire. Some of the Roman emperors themselves 
were openly addicted to it. And however the religion 
of Isis may, like any other, have been often worn as a 
cloak by men and women of loose life, her rites appear 
on the whole to have been honourably distinguished 
by a dignity and composure, a solemnity and decorum 
well fitted to soothe the troubled mind, to ease the 
burdened heart. They appealed therefore to gentle 
spirits, and above all to women, whom the bloody and 
licentious rites of other Oriental goddesses only 
shocked and repelled. We need not wonder, then, 
that in a period of decadence, when traditional faiths 


312 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


were shaken, when systems clashed, when men’s minds 
were disquieted, when the fabric of empire itself, once 
deemed eternal, began to show ominous rents and 
fissures, the serene figure of Isis with her spiritual 
calm, her gracious promise of immortality, should 
have appeared to many like a star in a stormy sky, 
and should have roused in their breasts a rapture of 
devotion not unlike that which was paid in the Middle 
Ages to the Virgin Mary. Indeed her stately ritual, 
with its. shaven and tonsured priests, its matins and 
vespers, its tinkling music, its baptism and aspersions 
of holy water, its solemn processions, its jewelled images 
of the Mother of God, presented many points of 
similarity to the pomps and ceremonies of Catholicism. 
The resemblance need not be purely accidental. 
Ancient Egypt may have contributed its share to the 
gorgeous symbolism of the Catholic Church as well as 
to the pale abstractions of her theology. Certainly in 
art the figure of Isis suckling the infant Horus is so 
like that of the Madonna and child that it has some- 
times received the adoration of ignorant Christians. 
And to Isis in her later character of patroness of 
mariners the Virgin Mary perhaps owes her beautiful 
epithet of Stella Maris, “‘ Star of the Sea’”’, under 
which she is adored by tempest-tossed sailors. The 
attributes of a marine deity may have been bestowed 
on Isis by the sea-faring Greeks of Alexandria. They 
are quite foreign to her original character and to the 
habits of the Egyptians, who had no love of the sea. 
On this hypothesis Sirius, the bright star of Isis, 
which on July mornings rises from the glassy waves 
of the eastern Mediterranean, a harbinger of halcyon 
weather to mariners, was the true Sze//a Maris, 
“the Star of the Sea ”’. 


THE VIRTUE OF TABOO 313 


CXXIX 
THE VIRTUE OF TABOO! 


Apparently holiness, magical virtue, taboo, or 
whateyer we may call that mysterious quality which is 
supposed to pervade sacred or tabooed persons, is 
conceived by the primitive philosopher as a physical 
substance or fluid, with which the sacred man is 
charged just as a Leyden jar is charged with elec- 
tricity ; and exactly as the electricity in the jar can be 
discharged by contact with a good conductor, so the 
holiness or magical virtue in the man can be discharged 
and drained away by contact with the earth, which 
on this theory serves as an excellent conductor for 
the magical fluid. Hence, in order to preserve the 
charge from running to waste, the sacred or tabooed 
personage must be carefully prevented from touch- 
ing the ground; in electrical language, he must be 
insulated, if he is not to be emptied of the precious 
substance or fluid with which he, as a vial, is filled to 
the brim. And in many cases apparently the insulation 
of the tabooed person is recommended as a precaution 
not-merely for his own sake but for the sake of others ; 
for since the virtue of holiness or taboo is, so to say, 
a powerful explosive which the smallest touch may 
detonate, it is necessary in the interest of the general 
safety to keep it within narrow bounds, lest, breaking 
out, it should blast, blight, and destroy whatever it 
comes into contact with. 

But things as well as persons are often charged with 
the mysterious quality of holiness or taboo; hence it 

1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. i. pp. 6-7. 


314 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


frequently becomes necessary for similar reasons to 
guard them also from coming into contact with the 
ground, lest they should in like manner be drained 
of their valuable properties and be reduced to mere 
commonplace material objects, empty husks from 
which the good grain has been eliminated. | 


CXXX 
THE CONFESSION OF SINS! 


It seems probable that originally the violation of 
taboo, in other words, sin, was conceived as some- 
thing almost physical, a sort of morbid substance 
lurking in the sinner’s body, from which it could 
be expelled by confession as by a sort of spiritual 
purge or emetic. This is confirmed by the form of 
auricular confession which is practised by the Akikuyu 
of Kenya in East Africa. Amongst them, we are 
told, “sin is essentially remissible; it suffices to 
confess it. Usually this is done to the sorcerer, who 
expels the sin by a ceremony of which the principal 
rite is a pretended emetic: fotahzkio, derived from 
tahika, ‘to vomit’. Thus among these savages 
the confession and absolution of sins is, so to say, a 
purely physical process of relieving a sufferer of a 
burden which sits heavy on his stomach rather than 
on his conscience. This view of the matter is again 
confirmed by the observation that these same Akikuyu 
resort to another physical mode of expelling sin from 
a sinner, and that is by the employment of a scape- 
goat, which by them, as by the Jews and many other 


1 The Golden Bough, Part Il. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, 
PP. 214-215, 217-218. 


THE CONFESSION OF SINS 315 


people, has been employed as a vehicle for carting 
away moral rubbish and dumping it somewhere else. 
For example, if a Kikuyu man has committed incest, 
which would naturally entail his death, he produces 
a substitute in the shape of a he-goat, to which by 
an ignoble ceremony he transfers his guilt. Then 
the throat of the animal is cut, and the human culprit 
is purged of his sin by the vicarious suffering and 
death of the goat. 

Thus at an early stage of culture the confession of 
sins wears the aspect of a bodily rather than of a moral 
and spiritual purgation ; it is a magical rather than a 
religious rite, and as such it resembles the ceremonies of 
washing, scouring, fumigation, and so forth, which in 
like manner are applied by many primitive peoples to 
the purification of what we should regard as moral 
guilt, but what they consider rather as a corporeal 
pollution or infection, which can be removed by the 
physical agencies of fire, water, fasts, purgatives, 
abrasion, scarification, and so forth. But when the 
guilt of sin ceases to be regarded as something material, 
a sort of clinging vapour of death, and is conceived as 
the transgression of the will of a wise and good God, it 
is obvious that the observance of these outward rites 
of purification becomes superfluous and absurd, a vain 
show which cannot appease the anger of the offended 
deity. The only means of turning away his wrath 
and averting the fatal consequences of sin is now 
believed to be the humble confession and true repent- 
ance of the sinner. At this stage of ethical evolution 
the practice of confession loses its old magical character 
as a bodily purge and assumes the new aspect of a 
purely religious rite, the propitiation of a great super- 
natural and moral being, who by a simple fiat can 


316 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


cancel the transgression and restore the transgressor 


to a state of pristine innocence. This comfortable — 


doctrine teaches us that in order to blot out the effects 
of our misdeeds we have only to acknowledge and 
confess them with a lowly and penitent heart, where- 
upon a merciful God will graciously pardon our sin 
and absolve us and ours from its consequences. It 
might indeed be well for the world if we could thus 
easily undo the past, if we could recall the words that 
have been spoken amiss, if we could arrest the long 
train that follows, like a flight of avenging Furies, on 
every evil action. But this we cannot do. Our words 
and acts, good and bad, have their natural, their 
inevitable consequences. God may pardon sin, but 
Nature cannot. 


CXXXI 


THE PERMANENCE OF SUPERSTITION? 


If we examine the superstitious beliefs which are 
tacitly but firmly held by many of our fellow-country- 
men, we shall find, perhaps to our surprise, that it is 
precisely the oldest and crudest superstitions which 
are most tenacious of life, while views which, though 
also erroneous, are more modern and refined, soon 
fade from the popular memory. For example, the 
high gods of Egypt and Babylon, of Greece and 
Rome, have for ages been totally forgotten by the 
people and survive only in the books of the learned ; 
yet the peasants, who never even heard of Isis and 
Osiris, of Apollo and Artemis, of Jupiter and Juno, 
retain to this day a firm belief in witches and fairies, 
in ghosts and hobgoblins, those lesser creatures of the 

1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 170-171. 


THE PERMANENCE OF SUPERSTITION 317 


mythical fancy in which their fathers believed long 
before the great deities of the ancient world were ever 
thought of, and in which, to all appearance, their 
descendants will continue to believe long after the 
great deities of the present day shall have gone the 
way of all their predecessors. The reason why the 
higher forms of superstition or religion (for the religion 
of one generation is apt to become the superstition of 
the next) are less permanent than the lower is simply 
that the higher beliefs, being a creation of superior 
intelligence, have little hold on the minds of the vulgar, 
who nominally profess them for a time in conformity 
with the will of their betters, but readily shed and 
forget them as soon as these beliefs have gone out of 
fashion with the educated classes. But while they 
dismiss without a pang or an effort articles of faith 
which are only superficially imprinted on their minds 
by the weight of cultured opinion, the ignorant and 
foolish multitude cling with a sullen determination to 
far grosser beliefs which really answer to the coarser 
texture of their undeveloped intellect. Thus while 
the avowed creed of the enlightened minority is con- 
stantly changing under the influence of reflection and 
inquiry, the real, though unavowed, creed of the mass 
of mankind appears to be almost stationary, and the 
reason why it alters so little is that in the majority of 
men, whether they are savages or outwardly civilized 
beings, intellectual progress is so slow as to be hardly 
perceptible. The surface of society, like that of the 
sea, is in perpetual motion; its depths, like those of 
the ocean, remain almost unmoved. 


ates, 


318 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


CXXXII 


THE PRIMITIVE ARYAN ? 


It can hardly be too often repeated, since it is 
not yet generally recognized, that in spite of their 
fragmentary character the popular superstitions and 
customs of the peasantry are by far. the fullest and 
most trustworthy evidence we possess as to the primi- 
tive religion of the Aryans. Indeed the primitive 
Aryan, in all that regards his mental fibre and texture, 
is not extinct. He is amongst us to this day. The 
great intellectual and moral forces which have revolu- 
tionized the educated world have scarcely affected the 
peasant. In his inmost beliefs he is what his fore- 
fathers were in the days when forest trees still grew 
and squirrels played on the ground where Rome and 
London now stand. ? 

Hence every inquiry into the primitive religion of 
the Aryans should either start from the superstitious 
beliefs and observances of the peasantry, or should at 
least be constantly checked and controlled by reference 
to them. Compared with the evidence afforded by 
living tradition, the testimony of ancient books on the 
subject of early religion is worth very little. For 
literature accelerates the advance of thought at a rate 
which leaves the slow progress of opinion by word 
of mouth at an immeasurable distance behind. Two 
or three generations of literature may do more to 
change thought than two or three thousand years of 
traditional life. But the mass of the people who 
do not read books remain unaffected by the mental 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i., Preface, pp. xi-xii. 


THE MENACE OF SUPERSTITION 319 


revolution wrought by literature ; and so it has come 
about that in Europe at the present day the super- 
stitious beliefs and practices which have been handed 
down by word of mouth are generally of a far more 
archaic type than the religion depicted in the most 
ancient literature of the Aryan race. 


CXXXIII 
THE MENACE OF SUPERSTITION ! 


In civilized society most educated people are not 
even aware of the extent to which these relics of savage 
ignorance survive at their doors. The discovery of 
their wide prevalence was indeed only made last 
century, chiefly through the researches of the brothers 
Grimm in Germany. Since their day systematic 
inquiries carried on among the less educated classes, 
and especially among the peasantry, of Europe have 
revealed the astonishing, nay, alarming truth that a 
mass, if not the majority, of people in every civilized 
country is still living in a state. of intellectual savagery, 
that, in fact, the smooth surface of cultured society is 
sapped and mined by superstition. Only those whose 
studies have led them to investigate the subject are 
aware of the depth to which the ground beneath our 
feet is thus, as it were, honeycombed by unseen forces. 
We appear to be standing on a volcano which may at 
any moment break out in smoke and fire to spread 
ruin and devastation among the gardens and palaces 
of ancient culture wrought so laboriously by the 
hands of many generations. After looking on the 
ruined Greek temples of Paestum and contrasting 


1 The Scope of Social Anthropology, pp. 169-170. 


320 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


them with the squalor and savagery of the Italian 
peasantry, Renan said, ‘I trembled for civilization, 
seeing it so limited, built on so weak a foundation, 
resting on so few individuals even in the country where 
it is dominant.” 


CXXXIV 
EUROPEAN BELIEF IN WITCHCRAFT}? 


We should deceive ourselves if we imagined that 
the belief in witchcraft is even now dead in the 
mass of the people; on the contrary, there is ample 
evidence to show that it only hibernates under the 
chilling influence of rationalism, and that it would start 
into active life if that influence were ever seriously 
relaxed. The truth seems to be that to this day the 
peasant remains a pagan and savage at heart; his 
civilization is merely a thin veneer which the hard 
knocks of life soon abrade, exposing the solid core of 
paganism and savagery below. The danger created 
by a bottomless layer of ignorance and superstition 
under the crust of civilized society is lessened, not only 
by the natural torpidity and inertia of the bucolic 
mind, but also by the progressive decrease of the rural 
as compared with the urban population in modern 
states; for I believe it will be found that the artisans 
who congregate in towns are far less retentive of 
primitive modes of thought than their rustic brethren. 
In every age cities have been the centres and as it were 
the lighthouses from which ideas radiate into the 
surrounding darkness, kindled by the friction of mind 
with mind in the crowded haunts of men; and it 


1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. i., Preface, 
Pp. vili-ix, 


SAINTS AS RAINMAKERS IN SICILY 321 


is natural that at these beacons of intellectual light 
all should partake in some measure of the general 
illumination, No doubt the mental ferment and 
unrest of great cities have their dark as well as their 
bright side; but among the evils to be apprehended 
from them the chances of a pagan revival need hardly 
be reckoned. 


CXXXV 
SAINTS AS RAINMAKERS IN SICILY! 


The reader may smile at the meteorology of the 
Far East, but precisely similar modes of procuring 
rain have been resorted to in Christian Europe within 
our own lifetime. By the end of April 1893 there 
was great distress in Sicily for lack of water, The 
drought had lasted six months. Every day the sun 
rose and set in a sky of cloudless blue. The gardens 
of the Conca d’Oro, which surround Palermo with 
_ a magnificent belt of verdure, were withering. Food 
was becoming scarce. The people were in great 
alarm. All the most approved methods of procuring 
rain had been tried without effect. Processions had 
traversed the streets and the fields. Men, women, 
and children, telling their beads, had lain whole nights 
before the holy images. Consecrated candles had 
burned day and nightinthechurches. Palm branches, 
blessed on Palm Sunday, had been hung on the trees. 
At Solaparuta, in accordance with a very old custom, 
the dust swept from the churches on Palm Sunday 
had been spread on the fields. In ordinary years 
these holy sweepings preserve the crops; but that 
year, if you will believe me, they had no effect what- 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1. The Magic Art, vol. i. pp. 299-300. 


322 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


ever. At Nicosia the inhabitants, bare-headed and 
bare-foot, carried the crucifixes through all the wards 
of the town and scourged each other with iron whips. 
It was all in vain. Even the great St. Francis of 
Paola himself, who annually performs the miracle 
of rain and is carried every spring through the market- 
gardens, either could not or would not help. Masses, 
vespers, concerts, illuminations, fire-works—nothing _ 
could move him. At last the peasants began to lose 
patience. Most of the saints were banished. At 
Palermo they dumped St. Joseph in a garden to see 
the state of things for himself, and they swore to leave 
him there in the sun till rain fell. Other saints were 
turned, like naughty children, with their faces to the 
wall. Others again, stripped of their beautiful robes, 
were exiled far from their parishes, threatened, grossly 
insulted, ducked in horse-ponds. At Caltanisetta the 
golden wings of St. Michael the Archangel were 
torn from his shoulders and replaced with wings of 


pasteboard ; his purple mantle was taken away and 


a clout wrapt about him instead. At Licata the 
patron saint, St. Angelo, fared even worse, for he 
was left without any garments at all; he was reviled, 
he was put in irons, he was threatened with drowning 
or hanging. “ Rain or the rope!” roared the angry 
people at him, as they shook their fists in his face. 


CXXXVI 
THE TRANSIENCE OF THE HIGHER RELIGIONS? 


The quaint rites still practised at ploughing 
and sowing by the peasantry at opposite ends of 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. ii. 
PP: 335. 


THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK 323 


Europe no doubt date from an extremely early age 
in the history of agriculture. They are probably far 
older than Christianity, older even than those highly 
developed forms of Greek religion with which ancient 
writers and artists have made us familiar, but which 
have been for so many centuries a thing of the past. 
Thus it happens that, while the fine flower of the 
religious consciousness in myth, ritual, and art is 
fleeting and evanescent, its simpler forms are com- 
paratively stable and permanent, being rooted deep in 
those principles of common minds which bid fair to 
outlive all the splendid but transient creations of 
genius. It may be that the elaborate theologies, the 
solemn rites, the stately temples, which now attract 
the reverence or the wonder of mankind, are destined 
themselves to pass away like ‘all Olympus’ faded 
hierarchy ’’, and that simple folk will still cherish 
the simple faiths of their nameless and dateless fore- 
fathers, will still believe in witches and fairies, in 
ghosts and hobgoblins, will still mumble the old 
spells and make the old magic passes, when the 
muezzin shall have ceased to call the faithful to 
prayer from the minarets of St. Sophia, and when 
the worshippers shall gather no more in the long- 
drawn aisles of Notre Dame and under the dome of 
ot. Peter’s, 


CXXXVII 


THE RELIGION OF THE FOLK! 


In India from the earliest times down to the present 
day the real religion of the common folk appears 
always to have been a belief'in a vast multitude of 

1 The Golden Bough, Part VI. The Scapegoat, pp. 89-90. : 


324 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


spirits, of whom many, if not most, are mischievous 
and harmful. As in Europe beneath a superficial 
layer of Christianity a faith in magic and witchcraft, 
in ghosts and goblins, has always survived and even 
flourished among the weak and ignorant, so it has 
been and soit isinthe East. Brahmanism, Buddhism, 
Islam may come and go, but the belief in magic and 
demons remains unshaken through them all, and, 
if we may judge of the future from the past, is likely 
to survive the rise and fall of other historical religions. 
For the great faiths of the world, just in so far as they 
are the outcome of superior intelligence, of purer 
morality, of extraordinary fervour of aspiration after 
the ideal, fail to touch and move the common man. 
They make claims upon his intellect and his heart 
to which neither the one nor the other is capable 
of responding. The philosophy they teach is too 
abstract, the morality they inculcate too exalted for 
him. The keener minds embrace the new philosophy, 
the more generous spirits are fired by the new morality ; 
and-as the world is led by such men, their faith sooner 
or later becomes the professed faith of the multitude. 
Yet with the common herd, who compose the great 
bulk of every people, the new religion is accepted 
only in outward show, because it is impressed upon 
them by their natural leaders whom they cannot 
choose but follow. They yield a dull assent to it 
with their lips, but in their heart they never really 
abandon their old superstitions ; in these they cherish 
a faith such as they cannot repose in the creed which 
they nominally profess; and to these, in the trials and 
- emergencies of life, they have recourse as to infallible 
remedies, when the promises of the higher faith have 
failed them, as indeed such promises are apt to do. 


ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST 325 


CXXXVIII 
ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST} 


The worship of the Great Mother of the Gods and 
her lover or son was very popular under the Roman 
Empire. Inscriptions prove that the two received 
divine honours, separately or conjointly, not only in 
Italy, and especially at Rome, but also in the pro- 
vinces, particularly in Africa, Spain, Portugal, France, 
Germany, and Bulgaria. Their worship survived the 
establishment of Christianity by Constantine; for 
Symmachus records the recurrence of the festival 
of the Great Mother, and in the days of Augustine 
her effeminate priests still paraded the streets and 
squares of Carthage with whitened faces, scented 
hair, and mincing gait, while, like the mendicant 
friars of the Middle Ages, they begged alms from the 
_ passers-by. In Greece, on the other hand, the bloody 
orgies of the Asiatic goddess and her consort appear to 
have found little favour. The barbarous and cruel 
character of the worship, with its frantic excesses, was 
doubtless repugnant to the good taste and humanity 
of the Greeks, who seem to have preferred the kindred 
‘but gentler rites of Adonis, Yet the same features 
which shocked and repelled the Greeks may have 
positively attracted the less refined Romans and 
barbarians of the West. The ecstatic frenzies, which 
were mistaken for divine inspiration, the mangling of 
the body, the theory of a new birth and the remission 
of sins through the shedding of blood, have all their 
Origin in savagery, and they naturally appealed to 

1 The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol, i, pp. 298-312. 


326 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


peoples in whom the savage instincts were still strong. 
Their true character was indeed often disguised under 
a decent veil of allegorical or philosophical interpreta- 
tion, which probably sufficed to impose upon the rapt 
and enthusiastic worshippers, reconciling even the more 
cultivated of them to things which otherwise must 
have filled them with horror and disgust. 

The religion of the Great Mother, with its curious 
blending of crude savagery with spiritual aspirations, 
was only one of a multitude of similar Oriental faiths 
which in the later days of paganism spread over the 
Roman Empire, and by saturating the European 
peoples with alien ideals of life gradually undermined 
the whole fabric of ancient civilization. Greek and 
Roman society was built on the conception of the 
subordination of the individual to the community, of 
the citizen to the state; it set the safety of the 
commonwealth, as the supreme aim of conduct, above 
the safety of the individual whether in this world or 
in-a world to come. Trained from infancy in this 
unselfish ideal, the citizens devoted their lives to the 
public service and were ready to lay them down for 
the common good ; or if they shrank from the supreme 
sacrifice, it never occurred to them that they acted 
otherwise than basely in preferring their personal 
existence to the interests of their country. All this 
_was changed by the spread of Oriental religions which 
inculcated the communion of the soul with God and 
its eternal salvation as the only objects worth living 
for, objects in comparison with which the prosperity 
and even the existence of the state sank into insignifi- 
cance. The inevitable result of this selfish and 
immoral doctrine was to withdraw the devotee more 
and more from the public service, to concentrate his - 


~ ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST 327 


thoughts on his own spiritual emotions, and to breed 
in him a contempt for the present life which he regarded 
merely as a probation for a better and an eternal. 
The saint and the recluse, disdainful of earth and rapt 
in ecstatic contemplation of heaven, became in popular 
opinion the highest ideal of humanity, displacing the 
old ideal of the patriot and hero who, forgetful of self, 
lives and is ready to die for the good of his country. 
The earthly city seemed poor and contemptible to men 
whose eyes beheld the City of God coming in the 
clouds of heaven. Thus the centre of gravity, so to 
say, was shifted from the present to a future life, and 
however much the other world may have gained, 
there can be little doubt that this one lost heavily by 
the change. A general disintegration of the body 
politic set in. The ties of the state and the family 
were loosened: the structure of society tended to 
resolve itself into its individual elements and thereby 
to relapse into barbarism; for civilization is only 
possible through the active co-operation of the citizens 
and their willingness to subordinate their private 
interests to the common good. Men refused to defend 
their country and even to continue their kind. In their 
anxiety to save their own souls and the souls of others 
they were content to leave the material world, which 
they identified with the principle of evil, to perish 
around them. This obsession lasted for a thousand 
years. The revival of Roman law, of the Aristotelian 
philosophy, of ancient art and literature at the close of 
the Middle Ages, marked the return of Europe to 
native ideals of life and conduct, to saner, manlier 
views of the world. The long halt in the march of 
civilization was over. The tide of Oriental invasion 
had turned at last. It is ebbing still. 


328 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


Among the gods of Eastern origin who in the 
decline of the ancient world competed against each 
other for the allegiance of the West was the old 
Persian deity Mithra. The immense popularity of his 
worship is attested by the monuments illustrative of it 
which have been found scattered in profusion all over 
the Roman Empire. In respect both of doctrines and 
of rites the cult of Mithra appears to have presented 
many points of resemblance not only to the religion of 
the Mother of the Gods but also to Christianity. The 
similarity struck the Christian doctors themselves and 
was explained by them as a work of the devil, who 
sought to seduce the souls of men from the true faith 
by a false and insidious imitation of it. So to the 
Spanish conquerors of Mexico and Peru many of the 
native heathen rites appeared to be diabolical counter- 
feits of the Christian sacraments. With more prob- 
ability the modern student of comparative religion 
traces such resemblances to the similar and independent 
workings of the mind of man in his sincere, if 
crude, attempts to fathom the secret of the universe, 
and to adjust his little life to its awful mysteries. 
However that may be, there can be no doubt that the 
Mithraic religion proved a formidable rival to Chris- 
tianity, combining as it did a solemn ritual with 
aspirations after moral purity and a hope of immor- 
tality. Indeed the issue of the conflict between the 
two faiths appears for a time to have hung in the 
balance. An instructive relic of the long struggle is 
preserved in our festival of Christmas, which the 
Church seems to have borrowed directly from its 
heathen rival. In the Julian calendar the twenty-fifth 
of December was reckoned the winter solstice, and it 
was regarded as the Nativity of the Sun, because the 


ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST 329 


day begins to lengthen and the power of the sun to 
increase from that turning-point of the year. The 
ritual of the nativity, as it appears to have been 
celebrated in Syria and Egypt, was remarkable. The 
celebrants retired into certain inner shrines, from which 
at midnight they issued with a loud cry, ‘‘ The Virgin 
has brought forth! The light is waxing!’ The 
Egyptians even represented the new-born sun by the 
image of an infant which on his birthday, the winter 
solstice, they brought forth and exhibited to his 
worshippers. No doubt the Virgin who thus conceived 
and bore a son on the twenty-fifth of December was 
the great Oriental goddess whom the Semites called 
the Heavenly Virgin or simply the Heavenly Goddess; 
in Semitic lands she was a form of Astarte. Now 
Mithra was regularly identified by his worshippers 
with the Sun, the Unconquered Sun, as they called 
him; hence his nativity also fell on the twenty-fifth 
of December. The Gospels say nothing as to the day 
of Christ’s birth, and accordingly the early Church did 
not celebrate it. In time, however, the Christians of 
Egypt came to regard the sixth of January as the date 
of the Nativity, and the custom of commemorating 
the birth of the Saviour on that day gradually spread 
until by the fourth century it was universally estab- 
lished in the East. But at the end of the third or the 
beginning of the fourth century the Western Church, 
which had never recognized the sixth of January as 
the day of the Nativity, adopted the twenty-fifth of 
December as the true date, and in time its decision was 
accepted also by the Eastern Church. At Antioch the 
change was not introduced till about the year 375 a.p. 

What considerations led the ecclesiastical authori- 
ties to institute the festival of Christmas? The 


330 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


motives for the innovation are stated with great 
frankness by a Syrian writer, himself a Christian. 
‘“The reason’’, he tells us, ‘‘ why the fathers trans- 
ferred the celebration of the sixth of January to the 
twenty-fifth of December was this. It was a custom 
of the heathen to celebrate on the same twenty-fifth of 
December the birthday of the Sun, at which they 
kindled lights in token of festivity. In these solemni- 
ties and festivities the Christians also took part. 
Accordingly when the doctors of the Church perceived 
that the Christians had a leaning to this festival, they 
took counsel and resolved that the true Nativity 
should be solemnized on that day and the festival of the 
Epiphany on the sixth of January. Accordingly, 
along with this custom, the practice has prevailed of 
kindling fires till the sixth.’”’ The heathen origin of 
Christmas is plainly hinted at, if not tacitly admitted, 
by Augustine when he exhorts his Christian brethren 
not to celebrate that solemn day like the heathen on 
account of the sun, but on account of him who made 
the sun. In like manner Leo the Great rebuked the 
pestilent belief that Christmas was solemnized because 
of the birth of the new sun, as it was called, and not 
because of the nativity of Christ. 

Thus it appears that the Christian Church chose to 
celebrate the birthday of its Founder on the twenty- 
fifth of December in order to transfer the devotion 
of the heathen from the Sun to him who was called 
the Sun of Righteousness. If that was so, there can 
be no intrinsic improbability in the conjecture that 
motives of the same sort may have led the ecclesiastical 
authorities to assimilate the Easter festival of the 
death and resurrection of their Lord to the festival of 
the death and resurrection of another Asiatic god 


ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST 331 


which fell at the same season. Now the Easter rites 
still observed in Greece, Sicily, and Southern Italy 
bear in some respects a striking resemblance to the 
rites of Adonis, and it may be that the Church 
consciously adapted the new festival to its heathen 
predecessor for the sake of winning souls to Christ. 
But this adaptation probably took place in the Greek- 
speaking rather than in the Latin-speaking parts 
of the ancient world; for the worship of Adonis, 
while it flourished among the Greeks, appears to have 
made little impression on Rome and the West. 
Certainly it never formed part of the official Roman 
religion. The place which it might have taken in the 
affections of the vulgar was already occupied by the 
similar but more barbarous worship of Attis and the 
Great Mother. Now the death and resurrection of 
Attis were officially celebrated at Rome on the 
twenty-fourth and twenty-fifth of March, the latter 
being regarded as the spring equinox, and therefore 
as the most appropriate day for the revival of a god of 
vegetation who had been dead or sleeping through- 
out the winter. But- according to an ancient and 
widespread tradition Christ suffered on the twenty-fifth 
of March, and accordingly some Christians regularly 
celebrated the Crucifixion on that day without any 
regard to the state of the moon. This custom was 
certainly observed in Phrygia, Cappadocia, and Gaul, 
and there seem to be grounds for thinking that at one 
time it was followed also in Rome. Thus the tradition 
which placed the death of Christ on the twenty-fifth of 
March was ancient and deeply rooted. It is all the . 
more remarkable because astronomical considerations 
prove that it can have had no historical foundation. 
The inference appears to be inevitable that the passion 


332 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


of Christ must have been arbitrarily referred to that 
date in order to harmonize with an older festival of 
the spring equinox. This is the view of the learned 
ecclesiastical historian Mgr. Duchesne, who points out 
that the death of the Saviour was thus made to fall 
upon the very day on which, according to a wide- 
spread belief, the world had been created.: But the 
resurrection of Attis, who combined in himself the 
characters of the divine Father and the divine Son, 
was officially celebrated at Rome on the same day. 
When we remember that the festival of St. George in 
April has replaced the ancient pagan festival of the 
Parilia ; that the festival of St. John the Baptist in 
June has succeeded to a heathen Midsummer festival 
of water; that the festival of the Assumption of the 
Virgin in August has ousted the festival of Diana ; 
that the feast of All Souls in November is a continua- 
tion of an old heathen feast of the dead; and that 
the Nativity of Christ himself was assigned to the 
winter solstice in December because that day was 
deemed the Nativity of the Sun; we can hardly be 
thought rash or unreasonable: in conjecturing that 
the other cardinal festival of the Christian church— 
the solemnization of Easter—may have been in like 
manner, and from like motives of edification, adapted 
to a similar celebration of the Phrygian god Attis at 
the vernal equinox. 

At least it is a remarkable coincidence; if it is 
nothing more, that the Christian and the heathen 
festivals of the divine death and resurrection should 
have been solemnized at the same season and in the 
same places. For the places which celebrated the 
death of Christ at the spring equinox were Phrygia, 
Gaul, and apparently Rome, that is, the very regions 


ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST 333 


in which the worship of Attis either originated or struck 
deepest root. It is difficult to regard the coincidence 
as purely accidental. If the vernal equinox, the 
- season at which in the temperate regions the whole 
face of nature testifies to a fresh outburst of vital 
energy, had been viewed from of old as the time when 
the world was annually created afresh in the resur- 
rection of a god, nothing could be more natural than 
to place the resurrection of the new deity at the same 
cardinal point of the year. Only it is to be observed 
that if the death of Christ was dated on the twenty- 
fifth of March, his resurrection, according to Christian 
tradition, must have happened on the twenty-seventh 
of March, which is just two days later than the vernal 
equinox of the Julian calendar and the resurrection 
of Attis. A similar displacement of two days in the 
adjustment of Christian to heathen celebrations occurs 
in the festivals of St. George and the Assumption of 
the Virgin. However, another Christian tradition, 
followed by Lactantius and perhaps by the practice 
of the Church in Gaul, placed the death of Christ on 
the twenty-third and his resurrection on the twenty- 
fifth of March. If that was so, his resurrection co- 
incided exactly with the resurrection of Attis. 

In point of fact it appears from the testimony of an 
anonymous Christian, who wrote in the fourth century 
of our era, that Christians and pagans alike were 
struck by the remarkable coincidence between the 
death and resurrection of their respective deities, and 
that the coincidence formed a theme of bitter con- 
troversy between the adherents of the rival religions, 
the pagans contending that the resurrection of Christ 
was a spurious imitation of the resurrection of Attis, 
and the Christians asserting with equal warmth that 


334 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


the resurrection of Attis was a diabolical counterfeit 
of the resurrection of Christ. In these unseemly 
bickerings the heathen took what to a superficial 
observer might seem strong ground by arguing that 
their god was the older and therefore presumably the 
original, not the counterfeit, since as a general rule an 
original is older than its copy. This feeble argument 
the Christians easily rebutted. They admitted, indeed, 
that in point of time Christ was the junior deity, but 
they triumphantly demonstrated his real seniority by 
falling back on the subtlety of Satan, who on so im- 
portant an occasion had surpassed himself by inverting 
the usual order of nature. 

Taken altogether, the coincidences of the Christian 
with the heathen festivals are too close and too 
numerous to be accidental. They mark the com- 
promise which the Church in the hour of its triumph 
was compelled to make with its vanquished yet still 
dangerous rivals. The inflexible Protestantism of 
the primitive missionaries, with their fiery denuncia- 
tions of heathendom, had been exchanged for the 
supple policy, the easy tolerance, the comprehensive 
charity of shrewd ecclesiastics, who clearly perceived 
that if Christianity was to conquer the world it could 
do so only by relaxing the too rigid principles of its 
Founder, by widening a little the narrow gate which 
leads to salvation. In this respect an instructive 
parallel might be drawn between the history of Chris- 
tianity and the history of Buddhism. Both systems 
were in their origin essentially ethical reforms born of 
the generous ardour, the lofty aspirations, the tender 
compassion of their noble Founders, two of those 
beautiful spirits who appear at rare intervals on earth 
like beings come from a better world to support and 


ORIENTAL RELIGIONS IN THE WEST 335 


guide our weak and erring nature. Both preached 
moral virtue as the means of accomplishing what they 
regarded as the supreme object of life, the eternal 
salvation of the individual soul, though by a curious 
antithesis the one sought that salvation in a blissful 
eternity, the other in a final release from suffering, in 
annihilation. But the austere ideals of sanctity which 
they inculcated were too deeply opposed not only to 
the frailties but to the natural instincts of humanity 
ever to be carried out in practice by more than a small 
number of disciples, who consistently renounced the 
ties of the family and the state in order to work out 
their own salvation in the still seclusion of the cloister. 
If such faiths were to be nominally accepted by whole 
nations or even by the world, it was essential that they 
should first be modified or transformed so as to accord 
in some measure with the prejudices, the passions, the 
superstitions of the vulgar. This process of accom- 
modation was carried out in after ages by followers 
who, made of less ethereal stuff than their masters, 
were for that reason the better fitted to mediate be- 
tween them and the common herd. Thus, as time. 
went on, the two religions, in exact proportion to 
‘their growing popularity, absorbed more and more 
of those baser elements which they had been instituted 
for the very purpose of suppressing. Such spiritual 
decadences are inevitable. The world cannot live 
at the level of its great men. Yet it would be 
unfair to the generality of our kind to ascribe wholly 
to their intellectual and moral weakness the gradual 
divergence of Buddhism and Christianity from their 
primitive patterns. For it should never be forgotten 
that by their glorification of poverty and celibacy both 
these religions struck straight at the root not merely 


. cae! § 


x 


336 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


of civil society but of human existence. The blow 
was parried by the wisdom or the folly of the vast 
majority of mankind, who refused to purchase a chance 
of saving their souls with the certainty of extinguishing 
the species. 


CXXXIX 
THE PIETA OF MICHAEL ANGELO! 


When we reflect how often the Church has skil- 
fully contrived to plant the seeds of the new faith on 
the old stock of paganism, we may surmise that the 
Easter celebration of the dead and risen Christ was 
grafted upon a similar celebration of the dead and 
risen Adonis, which appears to have been celebrated 
in Syria at the same season. The type, created by 
Greek artists, of the sorrowful goddess with her dying 
lover in her arms, resembles and may have been 
the model of the Pzeta of Christian art, the Virgin 
with the dead body of her divine Son in her lap, 
of which the most celebrated example is the one by 
Michael Angelo in St. Peter’s. That noble group, in 
which the living sorrow of the mother contrasts so 
wonderfully with the languor of death in the son, is 
one of the finest compositions in marble, Ancient 
Greek art has bequeathed to us few works so beautiful, 
and none so pathetic. 


CXL 
THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION # 


That the historical study of religious beliefs, quite 
apart from the question of their truth or falsehood, 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 1V. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. i. pp, 256-257. 
® The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 3-5. . 


THE HISTORICAL STUDY OF RELIGION 337 


is both interesting and instructive will hardly be dis- 
puted by any intelligent and thoughtful inquirer. 
Whether they have been well or ill founded, these 
beliefs have deeply influenced the conduct of human 
affairs ; they have furnished some of the most power- 
ful, persistent, and far-reaching motives of action ; 
they have transformed nations and altered the face 
of the globe. No one who would understand the 
general history of mankind can afford to ignore the 
annals of religion. If he does so, he will inevitably 
fall into the most serious misconceptions even in 
studying branches of human activity which might 
seem, on a superficial view, to be quite unaffected by 
religious considerations. 

Therefore to trace theological and in general 
religious ideas to their sources and to follow them 
through all the manifold influences which they have 
exerted on the destinies of our race must always be 
an object of prime importance to the historian, what- 
ever view he may take of their speculative truth or 
ethical value. Clearly we cannot estimate their 
ethical value until we have learned the modes in which 
they have actually determined human conduct for 
good or evil: in other words, we cannot judge of 
the morality of religious beliefs until we have ascer- 
tained their history: the facts must be known before 
judgement can be passed on them: the work of the 
historian must precede the work of the moralist. 
Even the question of the validity or truth of religious 
creeds cannot, perhaps, be wholly dissociated from 
the question of their origin. If, for example, we dis- 
cover that doctrines which we had accepted with 
implicit faith from tradition have their close analogies 


in the barbarous superstitions of ignorant savages, 
Z 


338 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


we can hardly help suspecting that our own cherished 
doctrines may have originated in the similar super- 
stitions of our rude forefathers; and the suspicion 
inevitably shakes the confidence with which we had 
hitherto regarded these articles of our faith. The 
doubt thus cast on our old creed is perhaps illogical, 
since even if we should discover that the creed did 
originate in mere superstition, in other words, that the 
grounds on which it was first adopted were false and 
absurd, this discovery would not really disprove the 
beliefs themselves, for it is perfectly possible that a 
belief may be true, though the reasons alleged in 
favour of it are false and absurd: indeed we may 
affirm with great probability that a multitude of human 
beliefs, true in themselves, have been accepted and 
defended by millions of people on grounds which 
cannot bear exact investigation for a moment. For 
example, if the crude fancies and cruel customs of 
savages concerning a life after death should have 
the effect of making the belief in immortality look 
exceedingly foolish, those of us who cherish the belief 
may console themselves by reflecting that a creed 
is not necessarily false because some of the reasons 
adduced in its favour are invalid, because it has 
sometimes been supported by the despicable tricks of 
vulgar imposture, and because the practices to which 
it has given rise have often been in the highest 
degree not only absurd but pernicious. 

Thus an historical inquiry into the origin of religious 
creeds cannot, strictly speaking, invalidate, still less 
refute, the creeds themselves, though it may, and 
doubtless often does, weaken the confidence with which 
they are held. This weakening of religious faith as 
a consequence of a closer scrutiny of religious origins 


THE MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT 339 


is unquestionably a matter of great importance to the 
community ; for society has been built and cemented 
to a great extent on a foundation of religion, and it is 
impossible to loosen the cement and shake the founda- 
tion without endangering the superstructure. The 
candid historian of religion will not dissemble the 
danger incidental to his inquiries, but nevertheless it is 
his duty to prosecute them unflinchingly. Come what 
may, he must ascertain the facts so far as it is possible 
to do so; having done that, he may leave to others the 
onerous and delicate task of adjusting the new know- 
ledge to the practical needs of mankind. The narrow 
way of truth may often look dark and threatening, and 
the wayfarer may often be weary; yet even at the 
darkest and weariest he will go forward in the trust, 
if not in the knowledge, that the way will lead at 
last to light and to rest; in plain words, that there 
is no ultimate incompatibility between the good and 
the true. 


CXLI 


THE MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT! 


If now we consider, on the one hand, the essential 
similarity of man’s chief wants everywhere and at all 
times, and, on the other hand, the wide difference 
between the means he has adopted to satisfy them in 
different ages, we shall perhaps be disposed to conclude 
that the movement of the higher thought, so far as we 
can trace it, has on the whole been from magic through 
religion to science. In magic man depends on his 
own strength to meet the difficulties and dangers that 
beset him on every side. He believes in a certain 

1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautzful, vol. ii. pp. 304-308. 


340 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


established order of nature on which he can surely 
count, and which he can manipulate for his own ends. 
When he discovers his mistake, when he recognizes 
sadly that both the order of nature which he had 
assumed and the control which he had believed himself 
to exercise. over it were purely imaginary, he ceases 
to rely on his own intelligence and his own unaided 
efforts, and throws himself humbly on the mercy of 
certain great invisible beings behind the veil of 
nature, to whom he now ascribes all those far-reaching 
powers which he once arrogated to himself. Thus in 
the acuter minds magic is gradually superseded by 
religion, which explains the succession of natural 
phenomena as regulated by the will, the passion, or 
the caprice of spiritual beings like man in kind, 
though vastly superior to him in power. 

But as time goes on this explanation in its turn 
proves to be unsatisfactory. For it assumes that the 
succession of natural events is not determined by 
immutable laws, but is to some extent variable and 
irregular, and this assumption is not borne out by 
closer observation. On the contrary, the more we 
scrutinize that succession the more we are struck by 
the rigid uniformity, the punctual precision with which, 
wherever we can follow them, the operations of nature 
are carried on. Every great advance in knowledge 
has extended the sphere of order and correspondingly 
restricted the sphere of apparent disorder in the 
world, till now we are ready to anticipate that even in 
regions where chance and confusion appear still to 
reign, a fuller knowledge would everywhere reduce the 
seeming chaos to cosmos. Thus the keener minds, 
still pressing forward to a deeper solution of the 
mysteries of the universe, come to reject the religious 


THE MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT 341 


theory of nature as inadequate, and to revert in a 
measure to the older standpoint of magic by postulating 
explicitly, what in magic had only been implicitly 
assumed, to wit, an inflexible regularity in the order of 
natural events, which, if carefully observed, enables us 
to foresee their course with certainty and to act accord- 
ingly. In short, religion, regarded as an explanation 
of nature, is displaced by science. 

But while science has this much in common with 
magic that both rest on a faith in order as the under- 
lying principle of all things, readers of this work will 
hardly need to be reminded that the order presupposed 
by magic differs widely from that which forms the 
basis of science. The difference flows naturally from 
the different modes in which the two orders have been 
reached. For whereas the order on which magic 
reckons is merely an extension, by false analogy, of 
the order in which ideas present themselves to our 
minds, the order laid down by science is derived from 
patient and exact observation of the phenomena them- 

selves. The abundance, the solidity, and the splendour 
of the results already achieved by science are well 
fitted to inspire us with a cheerful confidence in the 
soundness of its method. Here at last, after groping 
about in the dark for countless ages, man has hit upon 
a clue to the labyrinth, a golden key that opens many 
locks in the treasury of nature. It is probably not too 
much to say that the hope of progress—moral and 
intellectual as well as material—in the future is bound 
up with the fortunes of science, and that every obstacle 
placed in the way of scientific discovery is a wrong to 
humanity. | 

Yet the history of thought should warn us against 
concluding that because the scientific theory of the 


342 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


world is the best that has yet been formulated, it is 
necessarily complete and final. We must remember 
that at bottom the generalizations of science or, in 
common parlance, the laws of nature are merely 
hypotheses devised to explain that ever-shifting phan- 
tasmagoria of thought which we dignify with the high- 
sounding names of the world and the universe. In 
the last analysis, magic, religion, and science are 
nothing but theories of thought; and as science has 
supplanted its predecessors, so it may hereafter be 
itself superseded by some more perfect hypothesis, 
perhaps by some totally different way of looking at the 
phenomena—of registering the shadows on the screen 
—of which we in this generation can form no idea. 
The advance of knowledge is an infinite progression 
towards a goal that for ever recedes. We need not 
murmur at the endless pursuit : 


“< Fatti non foste a viver come brutt 
-Ma per seguir virtute e conoscenza.” 


Great things will come of that pursuit, though we 
may not enjoy them. Brighter stars will rise on some | 
voyager of the future—some great Ulysses of the 
realms of thought—than shine on us. The dreams of 
magic may one day be the waking realities of science. 
But a dark shadow lies athwart the far end of this fair 
prospect. For however vast the increase of know- 
ledge and of power which the future may have in store 
for man, he can scarcely hope to stay the sweep of those 
great forces which seem to be making silently but 
relentlessly for the destruction of all this starry uni- 
verse in which our earth swims as a speck or mote. 
In the ages to come man may be able to predict, 
perhaps even to control, the wayward courses of the 


THE MOVEMENT OF THOUGHT 343 


winds and clouds, but hardly will his puny hands have 
strength to speed afresh our slackening planet in its 
orbit or rekindle the dying fire of the sun. Yet the 
philosopher who trembles at the idea of such distant 
catastrophes may console himself by reflecting that 
these gloomy apprehensions, like the earth and the 
sun themselves, are only parts of that unsubstantial 
world which thought has conjured up out of the void, 
and that the phantoms which the subtle enchantress 
has evoked to-day she may ban to-morrow. They 
too, like so much that to common eyes seems solid, 
may melt into air, into thin air. 

Without dipping so far into the future, we may 
illustrate the course which thought has hitherto run 
by likening it to a web woven of three different threads 
—the black thread of magic, the red thread of religion, 
and the white thread of science, if under science we 
may include those simple truths, drawn from observa- 
tion of nature, of which men in all ages have possessed 
a store. Could we then survey the web of thought 
from the beginning, we should probably perceive it 
to be at first a chequer of black and white, a patchwork 
of true and false notions, hardly tinged as yet by the 
red thread of religion. But carry your eye farther 
along the fabric and you will remark that, while the 
-black and white chequer still runs through it, there 
rests on the middle portion of the web, where religion 
has entered most deeply into its texture, a dark crimson 
stain, which shades off insensibly into a lighter tint as 
the white thread of science is woven more and more 
into the tissue. Toa web thus chequered and stained, 
thus shot with threads of diverse hues, but gradu- 
ally changing colour the farther it is unrolled, the 
state of modern thought, with all its divergent aims 


oe | A ae 
‘ “ 
j 
5 
a 


344 MAN AND THE SUPERNATURAL 


and conflicting tendencies, may be compared. Will the 
great movement which for centuries has been slowly 
altering the complexion of thought be continued in the 
near future? or will a reaction set in which may arrest 
progress and even undo much that has been done? 
To keep up our parable, what will be the colour of the 
web which the Fates are now weaving on the humming 
loom of time? will it be white or red? We cannot 
tell. A faint glimmering light illumines the backward 
portion of the web. Clouds and thick darkness hide 
the other end. 


’ 


Poet LV. 
MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


345 


: wt a 


VOY ae aes 


ro 


ies 


CXLII 
THE BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY! 


Or all the many forms which natural religion has 
assumed -none probably has exerted so deep and 
far-reaching an influence on human life as the belief 
in immortality and the worship of the dead; hence 
an historical survey of this most momentous creed 
and of the practical consequences which have been 
deduced from it can hardly fail to be at once instructive 
and impressive, whether we regard the record with 
complacency as a noble testimony to the aspiring 
genius of man, who claims to outlive the sun and the 
stars, or whether we view it with pity as a melancholy 
monument of fruitless labour and barren ingenuity 
expended in prying into that great mystery of which 
fools profess their knowledge and wise men confess 
their ignorance. 


CXLIII 
THE PROBLEM OF DEATH? 


The problem of death has very naturally exercised 
the minds of men in all ages. Unlike so many 
problems which interest only a few solitary thinkers 
this one concerns us all alike, since simpletons as well 
as sages must die, and even the most heedless and 


2 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 31-33- 
347 


348 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


feather-brained can hardly help sometimes asking 
themselves what comes after death. The question 
is therefore thrust in a practical, indeed importunate 
form on our attention ; and we need not wonder that 
in the long history of human speculation some of the 
highest intellects should have occupied themselves 
with it and sought to find an answer to the riddle. 
Some of their solutions of the problem, though dressed 
out in all the beauty of exquisite language and poetic 
imagery, singularly resemble the rude guesses of 
savages. So little, it would seem, do the natural 
powers even of the greatest minds avail to pierce the 
thick veil that hides the end of life. 

In saying that the problem is thrust home upon us 
all, I do not mean to imply that all men are constantly 
or even often engaged in meditating on the nature 
and origin of death. Far from it. Few people 
trouble themselves about that or any other purely 
abstract question: the common man would probably 
not give a straw for an answer to it. What he wants 
to know, what we all want to know, is whether death 
is the end of all things for the individual, whether 
our conscious personality perishes with the body or 
survives it for a time or for eternity. That is the 
enigma propounded to every human being who has 
been born into the world: that is the door at which 
so many inquirers have knocked in vain. Stated in 
this limited form the problem has indeed been of 
universal interest: there is no race of men known 
to us which has not pondered the mystery and arrived 
at some conclusions to which it more or less confidently 
adheres. Not that all races have paid an equal 
attention to it. On some it has weighed much more 
heavily than on others. While some races, like some 


THE PROBLEM OF DEATH 349 


individuals, take death almost lightly, and are too 
busy with the certainties of the present world to pay 
much heed to the uncertainties of a world to come, 
the minds of others have dwelt on the prospect of a 
life beyond the grave till the thought of it has risen 
with them to a passion, almost to an obsession, and 
has begotten a contempt for the fleeting joys of this 
ephemeral existence by comparison with the hoped- 
for bliss of an eternal existence hereafter. To the 
sceptic, examining the evidence for immortality by 
the cold light of reason, such peoples and such in- 
dividuals may seem to sacrifice the substance for the 
shadow: to adopt a homely comparison, they are 
like the dog in the fable who dropped the real leg 
of mutton from his mouth in order to snap at its 
reflection in the water. Be that as it may, where 
such beliefs and hopes are entertained in full force, 
the whole activity of the mind and the whole energy 
of the body are apt to be devoted to a preparation 
for a blissful or at all events an untroubled eternity, 
and life becomes, in the language of Plato, a meditation 
or practising of death. This excessive preoccupation 
with a problematic future has been a fruitful source 
of the most fatal aberrations both for nations and 
individuals. In pursuit of these visionary aims the 
few short years of life have been frittered away: 
wealth has been squandered: blood has been poured 
out in torrents: the natural affections have been 
stifled ; and the cheerful serenity of reason has been 
exchanged for the melancholy gloom of madness. 


“Oh threats of Hell and Hopes of Paradise ! 
One thing at least is certain—7Z zs Life flies ; 
One thing is certain and the rest is Lies ; 

The Flower that once has blown for ever dies.” 


350 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


The question whether our conscious personality 
survives after death has been answered by almost 
all races of men in the affirmative. On this point 
sceptical or agnostic peoples are nearly, if not wholly, 
unknown. Accordingly, if abstract truth could be 
determined, like the gravest issues of national policy, 
by a show of hands or a counting of heads, the doctrine 
of human immortality, or at least of a life after death, 
would deserve to rank among the most firmly estab- 
lished of truths ; for were the question put to the vote 
of the whole of mankind, there can be no doubt that 
the ayes would have it by an overwhelming majority. 
The few dissenters would be overborne; their voices 
would be drowned in the general roar. For dissenters 
there have been even among savages. The Tongans, 
for example, thought that only the souls of noblemen 
are saved, the rest perish with their bodies. However, 
this aristocratic view has never been popular, and is 
not likely to find favour in our democratic age. 


CXLIV 
PRIMITIVE THEORIES OF DEATH! 


Many savage races not only believe in a life after 
death ; they are even of opinion that they would 
never die at all if it were not for the maleficent arts 
of sorcerers and witches, who cut the vital thread 
prematurely short. In other words, they disbelieve 
in what we call a natural death ; they think that all 
men are naturally immortal in this life, and that 
every death which takes place is in fact a violent 
death inflicted by the hand of a human enemy, 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 33-34) 53> 56-58. 


PRIMITIVE THEORIES OF DEATH | 351 


though in many or most cases the foe is invisible 
and works his fell purpose not by a sword or a spear 
but by witchcraft. . . . Without pursuing the theme 
further I think we may lay it down as a general 
rule that at a certain stage of social and intellectual 
evolution men have believed themselves to be natur- 
ally immortal in this life and have regarded death 
by disease or even by accident or violence as an 
unnatural event which has been brought about by 
sorcery or witchcraft, and which must be avenged 
by the death of the sorcerer or witch. If that has 
been so, we seem bound to conclude that a belief in 
sorcery or witchcraft has had a most potent influence 
in keeping down the numbers of savage tribes ; since 
as a rule every natural death has entailed at least 
one, often several, sometimes many deaths by violence. 
This may help us to understand what an immense 
power for evil the world-wide faith in malignant 
magic, that is, in sorcery or witchcraft, has been 
among men. 

But even savages come in time to perceive that 
deaths are sometimes brought about by other causes 
than sorcery or witchcraft. Some of them admit 
extreme old age, accidents, and violence as causes 
of death which are independent of sorcery. The 
admission of these exceptions to the general rule 
certainly marks a stage of intellectual progress. . . . 

The Melanesians and the Caffres, two widely 
different and widely separated races, agree in recog- 
nizing at least three distinct causes of what we should 
call natural death. These three causes are, first, 
sorcery or witchcraft; second, ghosts or spirits ; 
and third, disease. That the recognition of disease 
in itself as a cause of death, quite apart from sorcery, 


352 _ MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


marks an intellectual advance, will not be disputed. 
It is not so clear, though I believe it is equally true, 
that the recognition of ghosts or spirits as a cause 
of disease, quite apart from sorcery, marks a real 
step in intellectual, moral, and social progress. In 
the first place, it marks a step in intellectual and 
moral progress; for it recognizes that effects which 
before had been ascribed to human agency spring 
from superhuman causes; and this recognition of 
powers in the universe superior to man is not only 
an intellectual gain but a moral discipline: it teaches 
the important lesson of humility. In the second place, 
it marks a step in social progress, because, when the 
blame of a death is laid upon a ghost or a spirit instead 
of on a sorcerer, the death has not to be avenged by 
killing a human being, the supposed author of the 
calamity. Thus the recognition of ghosts or spirits as 
the sources of sickness and death has as its immediate 
effect the sparing of an immense number of lives of 
men and women, who on the theory of death by 
sorcery would have perished by violence to expiate 
their imaginary crime. That this is a great gain to 
society is obvious: it adds immensely to the security 
of human life by removing one of the most fruitful 
causes of its destruction. 

It must be admitted, however, that the gain is not 


always as great as might be expected ; the social ad- 


vantages of a belief in ghosts and spirits are attended 
by many serious drawbacks. For while ghosts or 
spirits are commonly, though not always, supposed 
to be beyond the reach of human vengeance, they are 
generally thought to be well within the reach of human 
persuasion, flattery, and bribery; in other words, 
men think that they can appease and propitiate them 


PRIMITIVE THEORIES OF DEATH 353 


by prayer and sacrifice; and while prayer is always 
cheap, sacrifice may be very dear, since it can, and 
often does, involve the destruction of an immense 
deal of valuable property and of a vast number of 
human lives. Yet if we could reckon up the myriads 
who have been slain in sacrifice to ghosts and gods, 
it seems probable that they would fall far short of 
the untold multitudes who have perished as sorcerers 
and witches. For while human sacrifices in honour 
of deities or of the dead have been for the most part 
exceptional rather than regular, only the great gods 
and the illustrious dead being deemed worthy of such 
costly offerings, the slaughter of witches and wizards, 
theoretically at least, followed inevitably on every 
natural death among people who attributed all such 
deaths to sorcery. Hence if natural religion be 
defined roughly as a belief in superhuman spiritual 
beings and an attempt to propitiate them, we may 
perhaps say that, while natural religion has slain its 
thousands, magic has slain its ten thousands. But 
there are strong reasons for inferring that in the 
history of society an Age of Magic preceded an Age 
of Religion. If that was so, we may conclude that 
the advent of religion marked a great social as well 
as intellectual advance upon the preceding Age of 
Magic: it inaugurated an era of what might be 
described as mercy by comparison with the relentless 
severity of its predecessor. 


2A 


354 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


CXLV 
THE FEAR OF, DEATH? 


A variety of causes has led the modern nations of 
western Europe to set on human life—their own life 
and that of others—a higher value than is put upon it 
by many other races. The result is a fear of death 
which is certainly not shared in the same degree of 
intensity by some peoples whom we in our self-com- 
placency are accustomed to regard as our inferiors. 
Among the causes which thus tend to make us cowards 
may be numbered the spread of luxury and the doc- 
trines of a gloomy theology, which by proclaiming 
the eternal damnation and excruciating torments of 
the vast majority of mankind has added incalculably 
to the dread and horror of death. The growth of 
humaner sentiments, which seldom fails to effect a 
corresponding amelioration in the character even of 
the gods, has indeed led many Protestant divines of 
late years to temper the rigour of the divine justice 
with a large infusion of mercy by relegating the fires 
of hell to a decent obscurity or even extinguishing 
them altogether. But these lurid flames appear to 
blaze as fiercely as ever in the more conservative 
theology of the Catholic Church. 


CXLVI 
THE CONTEMPT OF DEATH ? 


We should commit a grievous error were we to 
judge all men’s love of life by our own, and to assume 


1 The Golden Bough, Part Ill. The Dying God, pp. 135-136. 
* The Golden Bough, Part III. The Dying God, p. 146. 


THE FALL OF MAN 355 


that others cannot hold cheap what we count so dear. 
We shall never understand the long course of human 
history if we persist in measuring mankind in all ages 
and in all countries by the standard, perhaps excellent 
but certainly narrow, of the modern English middle 
class with their love of material comfort and “ their 
_ passionate, absorbing, almost bloodthirsty clinging to 
life.’ That class, of which I may say, in the words 
of Matthew Arnold, that I am myself a feeble unit, 
doubtless possesses many estimable qualities, but 
among them can hardly be reckoned the rare and 
delicate gift of historical imagination, the power of 
entering into the thoughts and feelings of men of other 
ages and other countries, of conceiving that they may 
regulate their life by principles which do not square 
with ours, and may throw it away for objects which 
to us might seem ridiculously inadequate. 


CXLVII 
THE FALL OF MAN! 


Arguing from the analogy of the moon or of animals 
which cast their skins, the primitive philosopher has 
inferred that in the beginning a perpetual renewal of 
youth was either appointed by a benevolent being for 
the human species or was actually enjoyed by them, 
and that but for a-crime, an accident, or a blunder it 
would have been enjoyed by them for ever. People 
who pin their faith in immortality to the cast skins of 
serpents, lizards, peetles, and the like, naturally look 
on these animals as the hated rivals who have robbed 
us of the heritage which God or nature intended that 


1 Folk-lore in the Old Testament, vol. i. pp. 76-77. 


356 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


we should possess ; consequently they tell stories to 
explain how it came about that such low creatures con- 
trived to oust us from the priceless possession. Tales 
of this sort are widely diffused throughout the world, 
and it would be no matter for surprise to find them 
among the Semites. The story of the Fall of Man 
in the third chapter of Genesis appears to be an 
abridged version of this savage myth. Little is wanted 
to complete its resemblance to the similar myths still 
told by savages in many parts of the world. The 
principal, almost the only, omission is the silence of 
the narrator as to the eating of the fruit of the tree 
of life by the serpent, and the consequent attainment 
of immortality by the reptile. Nor is it difficult to 
account for the lacuna. The vein of rationalism 
which runs through the Hebrew account of creation, 
and has stripped it of many grotesque features that 
adorn or disfigure the corresponding Babylonian 
tradition, could hardly fail to find a stumbling-block 
in the alleged immortality of serpents; and the re- 
dactor of the story in its final form has removed this 
stone of offence from the path of the faithful by the 
simple process of blotting out the incident entirely from 
the legend. Yet the yawning gap left by his sponge 
has not escaped the commentators, who look in vain 
for the part which should have been played in the © 
narrative by the tree of life. If my interpretation of 
the story is right, it has been left for the comparative 
method, after thousands of years, to supply the blank 
in the ancient canvas, and to restore, in all their 
primitive crudity, the gay barbaric colours which the 
skilful hand of the Hebrew artist had softened or 
effaced. 


DEATH DEEMED UNNECESSARY 357 


CXLVIII 
DEATH DEEMED UNNECESSARY 1! 


So much for savage stories of the origin of death. 
They all imply a belief that death is not a necessary 
part of the order of nature, but that it originated in a 
pure mistake or misdeed of some sort on somebody’s 
part, and that we should all have lived happy and 
immortal if it had not been for that disastrous blunder 
or crime. Thus the tales reflect the frame of mind 
of many savages who still to this day believe all men 
to be naturally immortal and death to be nothing 
but an effect of sorcery. In short, whether we regard 
the savage’s attitude to death at the present day or his 
ideas as to its origin in the remote past, we must con- 
clude that primitive man cannot reconcile himself to 
the notion of death as a natural and necessary event ; 
he persists in regarding it as an accidental and unneces- 
sary disturbance of the proper order of nature. Toa 
certain extent, perhaps, in these crude speculations he 
has anticipated certain views of modern biology. Thus 
it has been maintained by Professor August Weiss- 
mann that death is not a natural necessity, that many 
of the lowest species of living animals do in fact live 
for ever; and that in the higher animals the custom 
of dying has been introduced in the course of evolution 
for the purpose of thinning the population and pre- 
venting the degeneration of the species, which would 
otherwise follow through the gradual and necessary 
deterioration of the immortal individuals, who, though 
they could not die, might yet sustain much bodily 

1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 84-86. 


hE Oe a 


358 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


damage through hard knocks in the hurly-burly of 
eternal existence on earth. , A similar suggestion that 
death is not a natural necessity but an innova- 


tion introduced for the good of the breed has been — 


made by our eminent English biologist, Mr. Alfred 
Russel Wallace. ... Thus it appears that two of 
the most eminent biologists of our time agree with 
Savages in thinking that death is by no means a 
natural necessity for all living beings. They only 
differ from savages in this, that whereas savages look 
upon death as the result of a deplorable accident, our 
men of science regard it as a beneficent reform in- 
stituted by nature as a means of adjusting the numbers 
of living beings to the quantity of the food supply, 
and so tending to the improvement and therefore on 
the whole to the happiness of the species. 


CXLIX 
THE PRIMITIVE CONCEPTION OF THE SOUL.1 


As the savage commonly explains the processes 
of inanimate nature by supposing that they are pro- 
duced by living beings working in or behind the 
phenomena, so he explains the phenomena of life 
itself. If an animal lives and moves, it can only be, 
he thinks, because there is a little animal inside which 
moves it: if a man lives and moves, it can only be 
because he has a little man or animal inside who 
moves him. The animal inside the animal, the man 
inside the man, is the soul. And as the activity of 
an animal or man is explained by the presence of the 
soul, so the repose of sleep or death is explained by 
its absence, sleep or trance being the temporary, 

* The Golden Bough, Part 11. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul. pp. 26-27. 


Po 


r 


THE SOUL CONCEIVED AS A SHADOW 359 


death being the permanent absence of the soul. Hence 
if death be the permanent absence of the soul, the 
way to guard against it is either to prevent the soul 
from leaving the body, or, if it does depart, to ensure 
that it shall return. The precautions adopted by 
savages to secure one or other of these ends take 
the form of certain prohibitions or taboos, which are 
nothing but rules intended to ensure either the con- 
tinued presence or the return of the soul. In short, 
they are life-preservers or life-guards. 


CL 
THE SOUL CONCEIVED AS A SHADOW}! 


Often the savage regards his shadow or reflection 
as his soul, or at all events as a vital part of himself, 
and as such it is necessarily a source of danger to him. 
For if it is trampled upon, struck, or stabbed, he will 
feel the injury as if it were done to his person ; and if 
it is detached from him entirely (as he believes that it 
may be) he will die. | 

Where the shadow is regarded as so intimately 
bound up with the life of the man that its loss entails 
debility or death, it is natural to expect that its 
diminution should be regarded with solicitude and 
apprehension, as betokening a corresponding decrease 
in the vital energy of its owner. An elegant Greek 
rhetorician has compared the man who lives only 
for fame to one who should set all his heart on his 
shadow, puffed up and boastful when it lengthened, 
sad and dejected when it shortened, wasting and 
pining away when it dwindled to nothing. The 
spirits of such an one, he goes on, would necessarily 


1 The Golden Bough, Part 11. Taboo and the Perils of the Soul, pp. 77-78, 
86-87. 


360 ' MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


be volatile, since they must rise or fall with every 
passing hour of the day. In the morning, when the 
level sun, just risen above the eastern horizon, 
stretched out his shadow to enormous length, rivalling 
the shadows cast by the cypresses and the towers on 
the city wall, how blithe and exultant would he be, 
fancying that in stature he had become a match for 
the fabled giants of old; with what a lofty port he 
would then strut and show himself in the streets and 
the market-place and wherever men congregated, 
that he might be seen and admired of all. But as 
the day wore on, his countenance would change, and 
he would slink back crestfallen to his house. At noon, 
when his once towering shadow had shrunk to his 
feet, he would shut himself up and refuse to stir abroad, 
ashamed to look his fellow-townsmen in the face; 
but in the afternoon his drooping spirits would revive, 
and as the day declined his joy and pride would swell 
again with the length of the evening shadows. The 
rhetorician who thus thought to expose the vanity of 
fame as an object of human ambition by likening it 
to an ever-changing shadow, little dreamed that in. 
_ real life there were men who set almost as much store 
by their shadows as the fool whom he had conjured 
up in his imagination to point a moral. So hard is 
it for the straining wings of fancy to outstrip the folly 
of mankind. 


CLI 
THE BELIEF IN AN EXTERNAL SOUL}? 


Unable to conceive of life abstractly as a “ per- 
manent possibility of sensation” or a “ continuous 
adjustment of internal arrangements to external 

1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. ii. pp. 95-96. 


THE BELIEF IN AN EXTERNAL SOUL 361 


_relations’’, the savage thinks of it as a concrete 
material thing of a definite bulk, capable of being 
seen and handled, kept in a box or jar, and liable to 
be bruised, fractured, or smashed in pieces. It is not 
needful that the life, so conceived, should be: in the 
man ; it may be absent from his body and still continue 
to animate him by virtue of a sort of sympathy or 
action at a distance. So long as this object which he 
calls his life or soul remains unharmed, the man is 
well ; if it is injured, he suffers ; if it is destroyed, he 
dies. Or, to put it otherwise, when a man is ill or dies, 
the fact is explained by saying that the material object 
called his life or soul, whether it be in his body or out 
of it, has either sustained injury or been destroyed. 
But there may be circumstances in which, if the life 
or soul remains in the man, it stands a greater chance 
of sustaining injury than if it were stowed away in 
some safe and secret place. Accordingly, in such 
circumstances, primitive man takes his soul out of his 
body and deposits it for security in some snug spot, 
intending to replace it in his body when the danger is 
past. Or if he should discover some place of absolute 
security, he may be content to leave his soul there 
permanently. The advantage of this is that, so long 
as the soul remains unharmed in the place where he 
has deposited it, the man himself is immortal ; nothing 
can kill his body, since his life is not in it. 

Evidence of this primitive belief is furnished by a 
class of folk-tales of which the Norse story of “‘ The 
giant who had no heart in his body ”’ is perhaps the 
best known example. Stories of this kind are widely 
diffused over the world, and from their number and 
the variety of incident and of details in which the 
leading idea is embodied, we may infer that the 


22 OS) OST eee eee 
7 ‘ a a 
; fir . 


362 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


conception of an external soul is one which has had a 
powerful hold on the minds of men at an early stage 
of history. For folk-tales are a faithful reflection of the 
world as it appeared to the primitive mind; and we 
may be sure that any idea which commonly occurs in 
them, however absurd it may seem to us, must once 
have been an ordinary article of belief. This assurance, 
so far as it concerns the supposed power of disengaging 
the soul from the body for a longer or shorter time, . 
is amply corroborated by a comparison of the folk- 
tales in question with the actual beliefs and practices 
of savages. 


CLII 
THE RITUAL OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION}? 


Amongst many savage tribes, especially such as 
are known to practise totemism, it is:customary for 
lads at puberty to undergo certain initiatory rites, of 
which one of the commonest is a pretence of killing 
the lad and bringing him to life again. Such rites 
become intelligible if we suppose that their substance 
consists in extracting the youth’s soul in order to 
transfer it to his totem. For the extraction of his 
soul would naturally be supposed to kill the youth 
or at least to throw him into a death-like trance, which. | 
the savage hardly distinguishes from death. His 
recovery would then be attributed either to the 
gradual recovery of his system from the violent 
shock which it had received, or, more probably, to 
the infusion into him of fresh life drawn from the 
totem. Thus the essence of these initiatory rites, so 
far as they consist in a simulation of death and 

1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. ii. pp. 225-226. 


‘ 


THE RITUAL OF DEATH AND RESURRECTION 363 


resurrection, would be an exchange of life or souls 
between the man and his totem. ‘The primitive belief 
in the possibility of such an exchange of souls comes 
clearly out in the story of the Basque hunter who 
affirmed that he had been killed by a bear, but that 
the bear had, after killing him, breathed its own soul 
into him, so that the bear’s body was now dead, but 
he himself was a bear, being animated by the bear’s 
soul. This revival of the dead hunter as a bear is 
exactly analogous to what, on the theory here sug- 
gested, is supposed to take place in the ceremony of 
killing a lad at puberty and bringing him to life 
again. The lad dies as a man and comes to life again 
as an animal; the animal’s soul is now in him, and 
his human soul is in the animal. With good right, 
__ therefore, does he call himself a Bear or a Wolf or 
what not, according to his totem; and with good 
right does he treat the bears or the wolves or what 
not as his brethren, since in these animals are lodged 
the souls of himself and his kindred.? 


1 This was my first theory of 
totemism. It may be called the Ex- 
ternal Soul theory, because on it a 
totem is simply the receptacle in which 
a man keeps his soul, just as in fairy 
tales a warlock keeps his life in a 
parrot, and a giant keeps his heart in 
an egg inaduck Afterwards I dis- 
carded the External Soul theory for 
the Industrial theory, and still later for 
the Conceptional theory. See above, 
Pp. 77 sgq-, 80 sgg. Perhaps, after all, 
my first theory is not wholly irrecon- 
cilable with my two later theories. 
Thus, for example, a man whose totem 
was an emu because the spirit of an 


emu was supposed to have entered his 
mother at conception (on the Con- 
ceptional theory) would naturally be 
thought peculiarly qualified to multiply 
emus for the good of the tribe (on 
the Industrial theory), and it might be 
deemed advisable that at puberty he 
should deposit his soul in an emu (on 
the External Soul theory) either for 
safety or in order to strengthen his 
connexion with the birds and so 
increase his power of magically multi- 
plying them. On this view my three 
successive theories of totemism would 
turn out to be, not inconsistent with, 
but complementary to, each other. 


364 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


CLIII 


THE REASON FOR DEPOSITING THE SOUL 
OUTSIDE THE BODY}? 


Wherever totemism is found, and wherever a pre- 
tence is made of killing and bringing to life again the 
novice at initiation, there may exist or have existed 
not only a belief in the possibility of permanently 
depositing the soul in some external object—animal, 
plant, or what not—but an actual intention of so 
doing. If the question is put, why do men desire to 
deposit their life outside their bodies ? the answer can 
only be that, like the giant in the fairy tale, they think 
it safer to do so than to carry it about with them, just 
as people deposit their money with a banker rather 
than carry it on their persons. At critical periods the 
life or soul is sometimes temporarily stowed away in 
a safe place till the danger is past. But institutions 
like totemism are not resorted to merely on special 
occasions of danger; they are systems into which 


aa 
f, 


every one, or at least every male, is obliged to be 


initiated at a certain period of life. Now the period 
of life at which initiation takes place is regularly 
puberty ; and this fact suggests that the special 
danger which totemism and systems like it are 
intended to obviate is supposed not to arise till sexual 
maturity has been attained, in fact, that the. danger 
apprehended is believed to attend the relation of the 
sexes to each other. It would be easy to prove by a 
long array of facts that the sexual relation is associated 
in the primitive mind with many serious perils; but 
1 The Golden Bough, Part VII. Balder the Beautiful, vol. ii. pp. 277-278. 


SAVAGE BELIEFS AS TO SOULS OF ANIMALS 365 


the exact nature of the danger apprehended is still 
obscure. We may hope that a more exact acquaintance 
with savage modes of thought will in time disclose this 
central mystery of primitive society, and will thereby 
furnish the clue, not only to totemism, but to the origin 
_ of the marriage system. 


CLIV 


SAVAGE BELIEFS AS TO THE SOULS 
OF ANIMALS? 


The explanation of life by the theory of an in- 
dwelling and practically immortal soul is one which 
the savage does not confine to human beings but 
extends to the animate creation in general. In so 
doing he is more liberal and perhaps more logical than 
the civilized man, who commonly denies to animals 
that privilege of immortality which he claims for 
himself. The savage is not so proud; he commonly 
believes that animals are endowed with feelings and 
intelligence like those of men, and that, like men, they 
possess souls which survive the death of their bodies 
either to wander about as disembodied spirits or to be 
born again in animal form. | 

The same motive which leads the primitive hus- 
bandman to adore the corn or the roots induces the 
primitive hunter, fowler, fisher, or herdsman to adore 
the beasts, birds, or fishes which furnish him with the 
means of subsistence. To him the conception of the 
death of these worshipful beings is naturally presented 
with singular force and distinctness; since it is no 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. ii. 
p. 204; vol. i., Preface, p. vi; vol. ii. p. 208. 


Pat ea a ee 
> ASA Ea ee 


366 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


figurative or allegorical death, no poetical embroidery 
thrown over the skeleton, but the real death, the 
naked skeleton, that constantly thrusts itself importun- 
ately on his attention. And strange as it may seem 
to us civilized men, the notion of the immortality and 
even of the resurrection of the lower animals appears 
to be almost as familiar to the savage and to be 
accepted by him with nearly as unwavering a faith as 
the obvious fact of their death and destruction. For 
the most part he assumes as a matter of course that 
the souls of dead animals survive their decease ; 
hence much of the thought of the savage hunter is 
devoted to the problem of how he can best appease 
the naturally incensed ghosts of his victims so as to 
prevent them from doing him a mischief. This refusal 
of the savage to recognize in death a final cessation 
of the vital process, this unquestioning faith in the 
unbroken continuity of all life, is a fact that has not 
yet received the attention which it seems to merit 
from inquirers into the constitution of the human 
mind as well as into the history of religion. 

Thus to the savage, who regards all living creatures 
as practically on a footing of equality with man, the 
act of killing and eating an animal must wear a very 
different aspect from that which the same act presents 
to us, who regard the intelligence of animals as far 
inferior to our own and deny them the possession of 
immortal souls. Hence on the principles of his rude 
philosophy the primitive hunter who slays an animal 
believes himself exposed to the vengeance either of its 
disembodied spirit or of all the other animals of the 
same species, whom he considers as knit together, like 
men, by the ties of kin and the obligations of the 


DREAMS AS SOURCE OF BELIEF IN IMMORTALITY 367 


blood feud, and therefore as bound to resent the injury 
done to one of their number. Accordingly the savage 
makes it a rule to spare the life of those animals which 
he has no pressing motive for killing, at least such 
fierce and dangerous animals as are likely to exact a 
bloody vengeance for the slaughter of one of their kind. 


CLV 


DREAMS AS A SOURCE OF BELIEF 
IN IMMORTALITY? 


A review of the customs observed by savages for 
the conciliation and multiplication of animals which 
they hunt and kill is fitted to impress us with a lively 
sense of the unquestioning faith which primitive man 
reposes in the immortality of the lower creatures. 
He appears to assume as an axiom too obvious to 
be disputed that beasts, birds, and fishes have souls 
like his own, which survive the death of their bodies 
and can be reborn in other bodies to be again killed 
and eaten by the hunter. The whole series of customs 
—customs which are apt to strike the civilized reader 
as quaint and absurd—rests on this fundamental 
assumption. A consideration of them suggests a 
doubt whether the current explanation of the savage 
belief in human immortality is adequate to account 
for all the facts. That belief is commonly deduced 
from a primitive theory of dreams. The savage, it 
is said, fails to distinguish the visions of sleep from 
the realities of waking life, and accordingly when 
he has dreamed of his dead friends he necessarily 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. The Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, 
vol. ii. pp. 260-261. 


368 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


concludes that they have not wholly perished, but that 
their spirits continue to exist in some place and some 
form, though in the ordinary course of events they 
elude the perceptions of his senses. On this theory 
the conceptions, whether gross or refined, whether 
repulsive or beautiful, which savages and perhaps 
civilized men have formed of the state of the departed, 
would seem to be no more than elaborate hypotheses 
constructed to account for appearances in dreams ; 
these towering structures, for all their radiant or 
gloomy grandeur, for all the massy strength and 
solidity with which they present themselves to the 
imagination of many, may turn out on inspection to 
be mere visionary castles built of clouds and vapour, 
which a breath of reason suffices to melt into air. 

But even if we grant for the sake of argument 
that this theory offers a ready explanation of the 
widespread belief in human immortality, it is less 
easy to see how the theory accounts for the corre- 
sponding belief of so many races in the immortality 
of the lower animals. In his dreams the savage 
recognizes the images of his departed friends by those 
familiar traits of feature, voice, and gesture which 
characterized them in life. But can we suppose that 
he recognizes dead beasts, birds, and fishes in like 
manner ? that their images come before him in sleep 
with all the particular features, the minute individual 
differences, which distinguished them in life from their 
fellows, so that when he sees them he can say to 
himself, for example, ‘‘ This is the very tiger that | 
speared yesterday ; his carcase is dead, but his spirit 
must be still alive’; or, “ That is the very salmon 
I caught and ate this morning ; I certainly killed his 
body, but clearly I have not succeeded in destroying 


LIFE AS AN INDESTRUCTIBLE ENERGY 369 


his soul’’? No doubt it is possible that the savage 
has arrived at his theory of animal immortality by 
some such process of reasoning, but the supposition 
seems at least more far-fetched and improbable than 
in the case of human immortality. And if we admit 
the insufficiency of the explanation in the one case, 
we seem bound to admit it, though perhaps in a less 
degree, in the other case also. In short, we conclude 
that the primitive theory of dreams appears to be 
hardly enough by itself to account for the widespread 
belief in the immortality of men and animals ; dreams 
have probably done much to confirm that belief, but 
would they suffice to originate it ? We may reasonably 
doubt it. 


CLVI 
LIFE AS AN INDESTRUCTIBLE ENERGY! 


To the savage death presents itself not as a natural 
necessity but as a lamentable accident or crime that 
cuts short an existence which, but for it, might have 
lasted for ever. Thus arguing apparently from his 
own sensations he conceives of life as an indestructible 
kind of energy, which when it disappears in one form 
must necessarily reappear in another, though in the 
new form it need not be immediately perceptible by 
us; in other words, he infers that death does not 
destroy the vital principle nor even the conscious 
personality, but that it merely transforms both of 
them into other shapes, which are not the less real 
because they commonly elude the evidence of our 
senses. If I am right in thus interpreting the thought 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wald, vol. ii. 
pp. 261-263. . 
25 


370 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


of primitive man, the savage view of the nature of life 
singularly resembles the modern scientific doctrine of 
the conservation of energy. According to that doctrine, 
no material energy ever perishes or is even diminished; 
when it seems to suffer diminution or extinction, all 
that happens is that a portion or the whole of it has 
been transmuted into other shapes which, though 
qualitatively different from, are quantitatively equi- 
valent to, the energy in its original form. In short, if 
we listen to science, nothing in the physical world is 
ever lost, but all things are perpetually changing: 
the sum of energy in the universe is constant and 
invariable, though it undergoes ceaseless transforma- 
tions. A similar theory of the indestructibility of 
energy is implicitly applied by the savage to explain 
the phenomena of life and death, and logically enough 
he does not limit the application to human beings but 
extends it to the lower animals. Therein he shows 
himself a better reasoner than his civilized brother, 
who commonly embraces with avidity the doctrine of 
human immortality but rejects with scorn, as deroga- 
tory to human dignity, the idea that animals have 
immortal souls. And when he attempts to confirm 
_ his own cherished belief in a life after death by appeal- 
ing to similar beliefs among savages and inferring 
from them a natural instinct of immortality, it is well 
to remind him that, if he stands by that appeal, he 
must, like the savage, consistently extend the privilege 
of immortality to the despised lower animals; for 
surely it is improper for him to pick and choose his 
evidence so as to suit his prepossessions, accepting 
those parts of the savage creed which tally with his 
own and rejecting those which do not. On logical and 
scientific grounds he seems bound to believe either 


EMPEDOCLES, HERBERT SPENCER, AND DARWIN 371 


more or less: he must hold that men and animals are 
alike immortal or that neither of them is so. 


CLVII 


EMPEDOCLES, HERBERT SPENCER, AND 
DARWIN 1 


So far as we can gather the real opinions of Pytha- 
goras and Empedocles from the traditional history of 
the one and the miserably mutilated writings of the 
other, they seem both, like Buddha, with whom they 
had much in common, to have used the old savage 
doctrine of the transmigration of souls mainly as a 
handle by which to impress on the minds of their 
followers the necessity of leading an innocent, pure, 
and even ascetic life in this world as the only means 
of ensuring a blissful or at all events an untroubled 
eternity in a world to come. At least this is fairly 
certain for Empedocles, whose views are comparatively 
well known to us through the fragments of his philo- 
sophical writings. From these utterances of his, the 
genuineness of which seems to be beyond suspicion, 
we gather that the psychology of Empedocles was a 
curious blend of savagery and mysticism. He regarded 
the incarnation of the human soul in a body of any 
sort as a punishment for sin, a degradation, a fall from 
heaven, an exile from God, a banishment from a world 
of bliss to a world of woe. He describes the earth asa 
cavern, a joyless land, where men wander in darkness, 
a prey to murder and revenge, to swarms of foul 
fiends, to wasting sickness and decay. He speaks with 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. ii, 
PP. 301-309. 


372 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


pity and contempt of the life of mortals as a wretched 
and miserable existence, begotten of strife and sighs 
and prolonged as a punishment for their sins through 
a series of transmigrations, until, by the exercise of 
virtue, they have been born again as prophets, poets, 
physicians, and princes, and so return at last to 
communion with the gods to live thenceforth free 
from pain and sorrow, immortal, incorruptible, divine. 
This view of human destiny, this passionate scorn 
poured on the present world, this ecstatic aspiration 
after a blissful eternity, the reward of virtue in a 
world to come, are very alien from the cheerful 
serenity, the calm rationalism of the ordinary Greek 
attitude towards existence on earth. In his profound 
conviction of the manifold sufferings inseparable from 
mortality, in his longing to put off the burden of the 
body or what he calls “‘ the garment of flesh ”’ in his 
tenderness for the lower animals and his strong sense 
of kinship with them, Empedocles resembled Buddha, 
whose whole cast of thought, however, was tinged 
with a still deeper shade of melancholy, a more hope- 
less outlook on the future. Yet so close in some 
respects is the similarity between the two that we might 
incline to suppose a direct influence of Buddhism on 
Empedocles, were it not that the dates of the two great 
thinkers, so far as they can be ascertained, appear to 
exclude the supposition. 

But if on its ethical side the teaching of Empedocles 
may almost be described as Buddhism relieved of 
its deepest shadows, on its scientific side it curiously 
anticipated some speculations which have deeply 
stirred the European mind in our own and our fathers’ 
days. For to his savage psychology and religious 
mysticism Empedocles superadded a comprehensive 


EMPEDOCLES, HERBERT SPENCER, AND DARWIN 373 


and grandiose theory of the material universe, which 
presents a close analogy to that of Herbert Spencer. 
The scientific doctrine of the conservation of energy 
or, as he preferred to call it, the persistence of force, 
which Spencer made the corner-stone of his system, 
has its counterpart in the Empedoclean doctrine of the 
conservation or indestructibility of matter, the sum 
of which, according to him, remains always constant, 
never undergoing either increase or diminution. Hence 
all the changes that take place in the physical world, 
according to Empedocles, resolve themselves into the 
integration and disintegration of matter, the com- 
position and decomposition of bodies, brought about 
by the two antagonistic forces of attraction and 
repulsion, which in mythical language he called love 
and hate. And just as all particular things are 
evolved by the force of attraction and dissolved by 
the force of repulsion, a state of concentration or 
aggregation in the individual perpetually alternating 
with a state of diffusion or segregation, so it is also 
with the material universe as a whole. It, too, alter- 
nately contracts and expands according as the forces 
of attraction and repulsion alternately prevail. For it 
was the opinion of Empedocles that a long, perhaps 
immeasurable, period of time, during which the force 
of attraction prevails over the force of repulsion, is 
succeeded by an equally long period in which the 
force of repulsion prevails over the force of attraction, 
each period lasting till, the predominant force being 
spent, its action is first arrested and then reversed by 
the opposite force; so that the material universe 
performs a periodic and rhythmic movement of alter- 
nate contraction and expansion, which never ceases 
except at the moments when, the two opposite forces 


374 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


exactly balancing each other, all things come to rest 
and equilibrium for a.time, only however to return, 
with the backward sweep of the cosmic pendulum, to 
their former state either of consolidation or of disper- 
sion. Thus, under the influence of attraction and 
repulsion, matter is constantly oscillating to and fro: 
at the end of a period of contraction it is gathered up 
in a solid globe: at the end of a period of expansion 
it is diffused throughout space in a state of tenuity 
which nowadays we might describe as gaseous. And 
this gigantic see-saw motion of the universe as a whole 
has gone on and will go on for ever and ever. 

The imposing generalization thus formulated by- 
Empedocles in the fifth century before our era was 
enunciated independently in the nineteenth century 
of our era by Herbert Spencer. Like his Greek 
predecessor, the modern English philosopher held that 
the material universe passes through alternate periods 
of concentration and dissipation, of evolution and 
dissolution, according as the forces of attraction and 
repulsion alternately prevail. The terms in which he 
sums up his general conclusions might be used with 
hardly any change to describe the conclusions of 
Empedocles. For the sake of comparison it may be 
well to subjoin the passage. It runs as follows: 

“Thus we are led to the conclusion that the entire 
process of things, as displayed in the aggregate of the 
visible Universe, is analogous to the entire process of 
things as displayed in the smallest aggregates. 

‘““ Motion as well as matter being fixed in quantity, 
it would seem that the change in the distribution of 
Matter which Motion effects, coming to a limit in 
whichever direction it is carried, the indestructible 
Motion thereupon necessitates a reverse distribution. 


EMPEDOCLES, HERBERT SPENCER, AND DARWIN 375 


Apparently, the universally coexistent forces of attrac- 
tion and repulsion, which, as we have seen, necessitate 
rhythm in all minor changes throughout the Universe, 
also necessitate rhythm in the totality of its changes— 
produce now an immeasurable period during which 
the attractive forces predominating, cause universal 
concentration, and then an immeasurable period during 
which the repulsive forces predominating, cause uni- 
versal diffusion—alternate eras of Evolution and 
Dissolution. And thus there is suggested the con- 
ception of a past during which there have been 
successive Evolutions analogous to that which is now 
going on; anda future during which successive other 
such Evolutions may go on—ever the same in principle 
but never the same in concrete result.” 

The most recent researches in physical science 
tend apparently rather to confirm than to invalidate 
these general views of the nature of the universe ; for 
if modern physicists are right in regarding the con- 
stitution of matter as essentially electrical, the ant- 
agonistic forces of attraction and repulsion postulated 
by Empedocles and Spencer would resolve themselves 
into positive and negative electricity. On the other 
hand the atomic disintegration which is now known 
to be proceeding in certain of the chemical elements, 
particularly in uranium and radium, and which 1s 
probably proceeding in all, suggests a doubt whether 
the universe is really, as Spencer supposed, in process 
of integration and evolution and not rather in process 
of disintegration and dissolution ; or whether perhaps 
the apparent evolution of the organic world is not 
attended by a simultaneous dissolution of the inorganic, 
so that the fabric of the universe would be a sort of 
Penelope’s web, which the great artificer weaves and 


376 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


unweaves at the same time. With such a grave doubt 
to trouble the outlook on the future, we may perhaps 
say that Empedocles was wiser than Herbert Spencer 
in leaving, as he apparently did, the question un- 
decided, whether during the epoch open to human 
observation the force of attraction or that of repulsion 
has been and is predominant, and consequently 
whether matter as a whole is integrating or disinte- 
grating, whether all things are gradually evolving 
into more complex and concentrated forms, or are 
gradually dissolving and wasting away, through 
simpler and simpler forms, into the diffused tenuity of 
their primordial constituents. 

Just as in his view of the constitution and history 
of the physical universe Empedocles anticipated to 
some extent the theories of Spencer, so in his view of 
the development of living beings he anticipated to 
some extent the theories of Darwin; for he held that 
the existing species of animals have been evolved out 
of inorganic matter through intermediate sorts of 
monstrous creatures, which, being ill fitted to survive, 
gradually succumbed and were exterminated in the 
struggle for existence. Whether Empedocles himself 
clearly enunciated the principle of the survival of the 
fittest as well as the doctrine of evolution, we cannot 
say with certainty ; but at all events it is significant 
that Aristotle, after stating for the first time the 
principle of the survival of the fittest, illustrates it by 
a reference to Empedocles’s theory of the extinction 
of monstrous forms in the past, as if he understood the 
theory to imply the principle. 

It is a remarkable instance of the strange com- 
plexities and seeming inconsistencies of human nature, 
that a man whose capacious mind revolved ideas so 


EMPEDOCLES, HERBERT SPENCER, AND DARWIN 377 


far-reaching and fruitful, should have posed among 
his contemporaries as a prophet or even as a god, 
parading the streets of his native city bedecked with 
garlands and ribbons and followed by obsequious 
crowds of men and women, who worshipped him and 
prayed to him that he would reveal to them the better 
way, that he would give them oracles and heal their 
infirmities. In the character of Empedocles, as in 
that of another forerunner of science, Paracelsus, the 
sterling qualities of the genuine student would seem 
to have been alloyed with a vein of ostentation and 
braggadocio ; but the dash of the mountebank which 
we may detect in his composition probably helped 
rather than hindered him to win for a time the favour 
and catch the ear of the multitude, ever ready as they 
are to troop at the heels of any quack who advertises 
his wares by a loud blast on a brazen trumpet. With 
so many claims on the admiration of the wise and the 
adulation of the foolish, we may almost wonder that 
Empedocles did not become the founder, if not the 
god, of a new religion.. Certainly other human deities 
have set up in practice and prospered with an intel- 
lectual stock-in-trade much inferior to that of the 
Sicilian philosopher. Perhaps Empedocles lacked 
that perfect sincerity of belief in his own pretensions 
without which it seems difficult or impossible per- 
manently to impose on the credulity of mankind. To 
delude others successfully it is desirable, if not abso- 
lutely necessary, to begin by being one’s self deluded, 
and the Sicilian sage was probably too shrewd a man 
to feel perfectly at ease in the character of a god. 
The old savage doctrine of the transmigration of 
souls, which Empedocles furbished up and passed off 
on his disciples as a philosophical tenet, was after- 


378 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


wards countenanced, if not expressly affirmed, by 
another Greek philosopher of a very different stamp, 
who united, as no one else has ever done in the same 
degree, the highest capacity for abstract thought with 
the most exquisite literary genius. But if he borrowed 
the doctrine from savagery, Plato, like his two pre- 
decessors, detached it from its rude original setting 
and fitted it into an edifying moral scheme of retri- 
butive justice. For he held that the transmigration 
of human souls after death into the bodies of animals 
is a punishment or degradation entailed on the souls 
by the weaknesses to which they had been subject or 
the vices to which they had been addicted in life, and 
that the kind of animal into which a peccant soul trans- 
migrates is appropriate to the degree and nature of its 
weakness or guilt. Thus, for example, the souls of 
gluttons, sots, and rakes pass into the bodies of asses ; 
the souls of robbers and tyrants are born again in 
wolves and hawks; the souls of sober quiet people 
untinctured by philosophy, come to life as bees and 
ants ; a bad poet may turn at death into a swan or a 
nightingale ; and a bad jester into an ape. Nothing 
but a rigid practice of the highest virtue and a single- 
minded devotion to abstract truth will avail to restore 
such degraded souls to their human dignity and finally 
raise them to communion with the gods. Though the 
passages in which these views are set forth have a mythi- 
cal colouring and are, like all Plato’s writings, couched 
in dramatic form and put into the mouths of others, 
we need not seriously doubt that they represent the 
real opinion of the philosopher himself. It is interest- 
ing and instructive to meet with the old savage theory 
of the transmigration of souls thus masquerading 
under a flowing drapery of morality and sparkling 


THE WORLD OF GHOSTS 379 


with the gems of Attic eloquence in the philosophic 
system of a great Greek thinker. So curiously alike 
may be the solutions which the highest and the lowest 
intellects offer of those profound problems which in 
all ages have engaged the curiosity and baffled the 
ingenuity of mankind. 


CLVIII 
THE WORLD OF GHOSTS}? 


The circle of human knowledge, illuminated by 
the pale cold light of reason, is so infinitesimally 
small, the dark regions of human ignorance which 
lie beyond that luminous ring are so immeasurably 
vast, that imagination is fain to step up to the border 
line and send the warm, richly coloured beams of 
her fairy lantern streaming out into the darkness ; 
and so, peering into the gloom, she is apt to mistake 
the shadowy reflections of her own figure for real 
beings moving in the abyss. In short, few men are 
sensible of the sharp line that divides the known from 
the unknown; to most men it is a hazy border-land 
where perception and conception melt indissolubly 
into one. Hence to the savage the ghosts of dead 
animals and men, with which his imagination peoples 
the void, are hardly less real than the solid shapes 
which the living animals and men present to his 
senses; and his thoughts and activities are nearly 
as much absorbed by the one as by the other. Of 
him it may be said with perhaps even greater truth. 
than of his civilized brother, ‘‘ What shadows we are, 
and what shadows we pursue!” 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Witd, vol. i.; 
Preface, p. vii. 


380 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


CLIX 
THE FEAR OF GHOSTS}? 


The fear of ghosts is widespread, perhaps universal, 
among savages ; it is hardly extinct among ourselves. 
If it were extinct, some learned societies might put 
up their shutters. Dead or alive, the fear of ghosts 
has certainly not been an unmixed blessing. Indeed 
it might with some show of reason be maintained 
that no belief has done so much to retard the economic 
and thereby the social progress of mankind as the 
belief in the immortality of the soul; for this belief 
has led race after race, generation after generation, 
to sacrifice the real wants of the living to the imaginary 
wants of the dead. The waste and destruction of 
life and property which this faith has entailed are 
enormous and incalculable. Without entering into de- 
tails I will illustrate by a single example the disastrous 
economic, political, and moral consequences which 
flow from that systematic destruction of property 
which the fear of the dead has imposed on many races. 
Speaking of the Patagonians, the well-informed and 
intelligent traveller d’Orbigny observes: ‘ They 
have no laws, no punishments inflicted on the guilty. 
Each lives as he pleases, and the greatest thief is the 
most highly esteemed, because he is the most dexterous. 
A motive which will always prevent them from 
abandoning the practice of theft, and at the same time 
will always present an obstacle to their ever forming 
fixed settlements, is the religious prejudice which, 
on the death of one of their number, obliges them to 


1 Psyche’s Task’, pp. 11-113. 


THE FEAR OF GHOSTS 381 


_ destroy his property. A Patagonian, who has amassed 
during the whole of his life an estate by thieving 
from the whites or exchanging the products of the 
chase with neighbouring tribes, has done nothing 
for his heirs ; all his savings are destroyed with him, 
and his children are obliged to rebuild their fortunes 
afresh,—a custom which, I may observe in passing, 
is found also among the Tamanaques of the Orinoco, 
who ravage the field of the deceased and cut down 
the trees which he has planted; and among the 
Yuracares, who abandon and shut up the house of the 
dead, regarding it as a profanation to gather a single 
fruit from the trees of his field. It is easy to see that 
with such customs they can nourish no real ambition, 
since their needs are limited to themselves; it is one 
of the causes of their natural indolence and is a motive 
which, so long as it exists, will always impede the 
progress of their civilization. Why should they trouble 
themselves about the future when they have nothing 
to hope from it? The present is all in all in their 
eyes, and their only interest is individual; the son 
will take no care of his father’s herd, since it will 
never come into his possession; he busies himself 
only with his own affairs and soon turns his thoughts 
to looking after himself and getting a livelihood. 
This custom has certainly something to commend it 
from the moral point of view in so far as it destroys 
all the motives for that covetousness in heirs which 
is too often to be seen in our cities. The desire or 
the hope of a speedy death of their parents cannot 
exist, since the parents leave absolutely nothing to 
their children; but, on the other hand, if the Pata- 
gonians had preserved hereditary properties, they 
would without doubt have been to-day in possession 


382 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


of numerous herds, and would necessarily have been 
more formidable to the whites, since their power in 
that case would have been more than doubled, whereas 
their present habits will infallibly leave them in a 
stationary state, from which nothing but a radical 
change will be able to deliver them.”” Thus poverty, 
indolence, improvidence, political weakness, and all 
the hardships of a nomadic life are the miserable 
inheritance which the fear of the dead entails on 
these wretched Indians. Heavy indeed is the toll 
which superstition exacts from all who pass within 
her gloomy portal. 

But we are not here concerned with the disastrous 
and deplorable consequences, the unspeakable follies 
and crimes and miseries, which have flowed in practice 
from the theory of a future life. We are dealing 
at present with the more cheerful side of the subject, 
with the wholesome, though groundless, terror which 
ghosts, apparitions, and spectres strike into the 
breasts of hardened ruffans and desperadoes. So 
far as such persons reflect at all and regulate their 
passions by the dictates of prudence, it seems plain 
that a fear of ghostly retribution, of the angry spirit 
of their victim, must act as a salutary restraint on 
their disorderly impulses ; it must reinforce the dread 
of purely secular punishment and furnish the choleric 
and malicious with a fresh motive for pausing before 
they imbrue their hands in blood. 


SALUTARY’ EFFECT OF THE FEAR OF GHOSTS = 383 


CLX 
Berean rr eCl OP THE FEAR OF GHOSTS} 


While the fear of the ghost has operated directly 
to enhance the sanctity of human life by deterring 
the cruel, the passionate, and the malignant from the 
shedding of blood, it has operated also indirectly to 
bring about the same salutary result. For not only 
does the hag-ridden murderer himself dread his 
victim’s ghost, but the whole community dreads it 
also and believes itself endangered by the murderer’s 
presence, since the wrathful spirit which pursues 
him may turn on other people and rend them. Hence 
society has a strong motive for secluding, banishing, 
or exterminating the culprit in order to free itself 
from what it believes to be an imminent danger, 
a perilous pollution, a contagion of death. To put 
it in another way, the community has an interest 
in punishing homicide. Not that the treatment of 
homicides by the tribe or the State was originally 
conceived as a punishment inflicted on them: rather 
it was viewed as a measure of self-defence, a moral 
quarantine, a process of spiritual purification and dis- 
infection, an exorcism. It was a mode of cleansing 
the people generally and sometimes the homicide him- 
self from the ghostly infection, which to the primitive 
mind appears to be something material and tangible, 
something that can be literally washed or scoured 
away by water, pig’s blood, sheep’s blood, or other 
detergents. But when this purification took the form 
of laying the manslayer under restraint, banishing 


1 Psyche’s Task*, pp. 151-153. 


384 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


him from the country, or putting him to death in order 
to appease his victim’s ghost, it was for all practical 
purposes indistinguishable from punishment, and the 
fear of it would act as a deterrent just as surely as if 
it had been designed to be a punishment and nothing 
else. When a man is about to be hanged, it is little 
consolation to him to be told that hanging is not a 
punishment but a purification. But the one con- 
ception slides easily and almost imperceptibly into the 
other; so that what was at first a religious rite, a 
solemn consecration or sacrifice, comes in course of 
time to be a purely civil function, the penalty which 
society exacts from those who have injured it: the 
sacrifice becomes an execution, the priest steps back 
and the hangman comes forward. Thus criminal 
justice was probably based in large measure on a crude 
form of superstition long before the subtle brains of 
jurists and philosophers deduced it logically, according 
to their various predilections, from a rigid theory of 
righteous retribution, a far-sighted policy of making 
the law a terror to evil-doers, or a benevolent desire 
to reform the criminal’s character and save his soul 
in another world by hanging or burning his body in 
this one. If these deductions only profess to justify 
theoretically the practice of capital punishment, they 
may be well or ill founded; but if they claim to 
explain it historically, they are certainly false. You 
cannot thus reconstruct the past by importing into one 
age the ideas of another, by interpreting the earliest 
in terms of the latest products of mental evolution. 
You may make revolutions in that way, but you 
cannot write history. 

If these views are correct, the dread of the ghost 
has operated in a twofold way to protect human life. 


SALUTARY EFFECT OF THE FEAR OF GHOSTS — 385 


On the one hand it has made every individual for his 
own sake more reluctant to slay his fellow, and on the 
other hand it has roused the whole community to 
punish the slayer. It has placed every man’s life 
within a double ring-fence of morality and law. The — 
hot-headed and the cold-hearted have been furnished 

with a double motive for abstaining from the last fatal 
step: they have had to fear the spirit of their victim 
on the one side and the lash of the law on the other : 
they are in a strait between the devil and the deep sea, 
between the ghost and the gallows. And when with 
the progress of thought the shadow of the ghost passes 
away, the grim shadow of the gallows remains to 
protect society without the aid of superstitious terrors. 
It is thus that custom often outlives the motive which 
originated it. If only an institution is good in practice, 
it will stand firm after its old theoretical basis has been 
shattered: a new and more solid, because a truer, 
foundation will be discovered for it to rest upon. More 
and more, as time goes on, morality shifts its ground 
from the sands of superstition to the rock of reason, 
from the imaginary to the real, from the supernatural 
to the natural. In the present case the State has not 
ceased to protect the lives of its peaceful citizens 
because the faith in ghosts is shaken. It has found a 
better reason than old wives’ fables for guarding with 


the flaming sword of Justice the approach to the Tree 
of Life. 


2C 


386 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


CLXI 
THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD! 


To judge by the accounts we possess not only of 
savage and barbarous tribes but of some _ highly 
civilized peoples, the worship of the human dead has 
been one of the commonest and most influential forms 
of natural religion, perhaps indeed the commonest 
and most influential of all. Obviously it rests on the 
supposition that the human personality in some form, 
whether we call it a soul, a spirit, a ghost, or what not, 
can survive death and thereafter continue for a longer 
or shorter time to exercise great power for good or 
evil over the destinies of the living, who are therefore 
compelled to propitiate the shades of the dead out of 
a regard for their own safety and well-being. This 
belief in the survival of the human spirit after death 
is world-wide ; it is found among men in all stages of 
culture from the lowest to the highest; we need not 
wonder therefore that the custom of propitiating the 
ghosts or souls of the departed should be world-wide 
also. No doubt the degree of attention paid to ghosts 
is not the same in all cases ; it varies with the particular 
degree of power attributed to each of them ; the spirits 
of men who for any reason were much feared in their 
lifetime, such as mighty warriors, chiefs, and kings, 
are more revered and receive far more marks of homage 
than the spirits of common men; and it is only when 
this reverence and homage are carried to a very high 
pitch that they can properly be described as a deifica- 
tion of the dead. But that dead men have thus been 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 23-29. 


THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 387 


raised to the rank of deities in many lands, there is 
abundant evidence to prove. And quite apart from 
the worship paid to those spirits which are admitted by 
their worshippers to have once animated the bodies 
of living men, there is good reason to suspect that 
many gods, who rank as purely mythical beings, were 
once men of flesh and blood, though their true history 
has passed out of memory or rather been transformed 
by legend into a myth, which veils more or less com- 
pletely the real character of the imaginary deity. The 
theory that most or all gods originated after this 
fashion, in other words, that the worship of the gods 
is little or nothing but the worship of dead men, is 
known as Euhemerism, from Euhemerus, the ancient 
Greek writer who propounded it. Regarded as a 
universal explanation of the belief in gods it is cer- 
tainly false ; regarded as a partial explanation of the 
belief it is unquestionably true ; and perhaps we may 
even go farther and say, that the more we penetrate 
into the inner history of natural religion, the larger is 
seen to be the element of truth contained in Euhemer- 
ism. For the more closely we look at many deities 
of natural religion, the more distinctly do we seem to 
perceive, under the quaint or splendid pall which the 
mythical fancy has wrapt round their stately figures, 
the familiar features of real men. who once shared the 
common joys and the common sorrows of humanity, 
who trod life’s common road to the common end. 
When we ask how it comes about that dead men 
have so often been raised to the rank of divinities, the 
first thing to be observed is that all such deifications 
must, if our theory is correct, be inferences drawn from 
experience of some sort; they must be hypotheses 
devised to explain the unperceived causes of certain 


388 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


phenomena, whether of the human mind or of external 
nature. All of them imply, as I have said, a belief 
that the conscious human personality, call it the soul, 
the spirit, or what you please, can survive the body 
and continue to exist in a disembodied state with un- 
abated or even greatly increased powers for good or 
evil. This faith in the survival of personality after 
death may for the sake of brevity be called a faith 
in immortality, though the term immortality is not 
strictly correct, since it seems: to imply eternal dura- 
tion, whereas the idea of eternity is hardly intelligible 
to many primitive peoples, who nevertheless firmly 
believe in the continued existence, for a longer or 
shorter time, of the human spirit after the dissolution 
of the body. Now the faith in the immortality of the 
soul or, to speak more correctly, in the continued 
existence of conscious human personality after death, 
is exceedingly common among men at all levels 
of intellectual evolution from the lowest upwards ; 
certainly it is not peculiar to adherents of the 
higher religions, but is held as an unquestionable 
truth by at least the great majority of savage and 
barbarous peoples as to whose ideas we possess 
accurate information; indeed it might be hard to 
point to any single tribe of men, however savage, 
of whom we could say with certainty that the faith 
is totally wanting among them. 

Hence if we are to explain the deification of dead 
men, we must first explain the widespread belief in 
immortality ; we must answer the question, how does 
it happen that men in all countries and at all stages 
of ignorance or knowledge so commonly suppose that 
when they die their consciousness will still persist for an 
indefinite time after the decay of the body ? 2To answer 


THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 389 


that question is one of the fundamental problems 
of natural theology, not indeed in the full sense of 
the word theology, if we confine the term strictly to 
a reasoned knowledge of a God; for the example 
of Buddhism proves that a belief in the existence of 
the human soul after death is quite compatible with 
disbelief in a deity. But if we may use, as I think we 
may, the phrase natural theology in an extended sense 
to cover theories which, though they do not in them- 
selves affirm the existence of a God, nevertheless appear 
to be one of the deepest and most fruitful sources of the 
belief in his reality, then we may legitimately say that 
the doctrine of human immortality does fall within 
the scope of natural theology. What then is its 
origin? How is it that men so commonly believe 
themselves to be immortal ? 

If there is any natural knowledge of human 
immortality, it must be acquired either by intuition 
or by experience; there is no other way. Now 
whether other men from a simple contemplation of 
their own nature, quite apart from reasoning, know 
or believe themselves intuitively to be immortal, I 
cannot say; but I can say with some confidence that 
for myself I have no such intuition whatever of my 
own immortality, and that if I am left to the resources 
of my natural faculties alone, I can as little affirm the 
certain or probable existence of my personality after 
death as I can affirm the certain or probable existence 
of a personal God. And I am bold enough to suspect 
that if men could analyse their own ideas they would 
generally find themselves to be in a similar predicament 
as to both these profound topics. Hence I incline to lay 
it down as a probable proposition that men as a rule 
have no intuitive knowledge of their own immortality, 


390 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


and that if there is any natural knowledge of such a 
thing it can only be acquired by a process of reasoning 
from experience. 

What then is the kind of experience from which the 
theory of human immortality is deduced? Is it our 
experience of the operations of our own minds ? or is 
it our experience of external nature? As a matter 
of historical fact—and I am treating the question 
purely from the historical standpoint—men seem to 
have inferred the persistence of their personality 
after death both from the one kind of experience 
and from the other, that is, both from the phenomena 
of their inner life and from the phenomena of what 
we conventionally call the external world. Thus 
the savage finds a very strong argument for immor- 
tality in the phenomena of dreams, which are strictly 
a part of his inner life, though in his ignorance he 
commonly fails to discriminate them from what we 
popularly call waking realities. Hence when the 
images of persons whom he knows to be dead appear 
to him in a dream, he naturally infers that these persons 
still exist somewhere and somehow apart from their 
bodies, of the decay or destruction of which he may 
have had ocular demonstration. How could he see 
dead people, he asks, if they did not exist? To argue 
that they have perished like their bodies is to contradict 
the plain evidence of his senses ; for to the savage still 
more than to the civilized man seeing is believing ; 
that he sees the dead only in dreams does not shake 
his belief, since he thinks the appearances of dreams 
just as real as the appearances of his waking hours. 
And once he has in this way gained a conviction that 
the dead survive and can help or harm him, as they 
seem to do in dreams, it is natural or necessary for 


THE WORSHIP OF THE DEAD 391 


him to extend the theory to the occurrences of daily 
life, which he does not sharply distinguish from the 
visions of slumber. He now explains many of these 
occurrences and many of the processes of nature 
by the direct interposition of the spirits of the de- 
parted ; he traces their invisible hand in many of 
the misfortunes and in some of the blessings which 
befall him ; for it is a common feature of the faith in 
ghosts, at least among savages, that they are usually 
spiteful and mischievous, or at least testy and petulant, 
more apt to injure than to benefit the survivors. In 
that they resemble the personified spirits of nature, 
which in the opinion of most savages appear to be 
generally tricky and malignant beings, whose anger is 
dangerous and whose favour is courted with fear and 
trembling. Thus even without the additional assur- 
ance afforded by tales of apparitions and spectres, 
primitive man may come in time to imagine the world 
around him to be more or less thickly peopled, 
influenced, and even dominated by a countless multi- 
tude of spirits, among whom the shades of past 
generations of men and women hold a very prominent, 
often apparently the leading, place. These spirits, 
powerful to help or harm, he seeks either simply to 
avert, when he deems them purely mischievous, or 
to appease and conciliate, when he supposes them 
sufficiently good-natured to respond to his advances. 
In some such way as this, arguing from the real but, 
as we think, misinterpreted phenomena of dreams, the 
savage may arrive at a doctrine of human immortality 
and from that at a worship of the dead. 

This explanation of the savage faith in immortality 
is neither novel nor original: on the contrary, it is 
perhaps the commonest and most familiar that has yet 


392 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


been propounded. If it does nat account for all the 
facts, it probably accounts for many of them. At the 
same time I do not doubt that many other inferences 
drawn from experiences of different kinds have con- 
firmed, even if they did not originally saggest, man’s 
confident belief in his own immortality. To take a 
single example of outward experience, the resemblances 
which children often bear to deceased kinsfolk appear 
to have prompted in the minds of many savages the 
notion that the souls of these dead kinsfolk have been 
born again in their descendants. From a few cases of 
resemblances so explained it would be easy to arrive 
at a general theory that all living persons are animated 
by the souls of the dead; in other words, that the 
human spirit survives death for an indefinite period, 
if not for eternity, during which it undergoes a series 
of rebirths or reincarnations. However it has been 
arrived at, this doctrine of the transmigration or rein- 
carnation of the soul is found among many tribes of 
savages ; and from what we know on the subject we 
seem to be justified in conjecturing that at certain 
stages of mental and social evolution the belief in 
metempsychosis has been far commoner and has 
exercised a far deeper influence on the life and institu- 
tions of primitive man than the actual evidence before 
us at present allows us positively to affirm. 


CLXII 


THE DEIFICATION OF THE DEAD? 


It may, perhaps, be laid down as a general prin- 
ciple that the worship of the dead tends constantly 


1 The Belief in Immortaltty, vol. ii. pp. 97-98. 


THE DEIFICATION OF THE DEAD 393 


to encroach on the worship of the high gods, who are 
pushed ever farther into the background by the advent 
of their younger rivals. It is natural enough that 
this should be so. The affection which we feel for 
virtue, the reverence and awe inspired by great 
talents and powerful characters, persist long after 
the objects of our love and admiration have passed 
away from earth, and we now render to their memories 
the homage which we paid, or perhaps grudged, to 
the men themselves in their lifetime. For us they 
seem still to exist; with their features, their char- 
acteristic turns of thought and speech still fresh in our 
memories, we can hardly bring ourselves to believe 
that they have utterly ceased to be, that nothing of 
them remains but the lifeless dust which we have 
comimitted to the earth. The heart still clings fondly 
to the hope, if not to the belief, that somewhere beyond 
our ken the loved and lost ones are joined to the 
kindred spirits who have gone before in that unknown 
land, where, in due time, we shall meet them again. 
And as with affection; so with reverence and fear ; 
they also are powerful incentives to this instinctive 
_ belief in the continued existence of the dead. The 
busy brain that explored the heights and depths of 
this mysterious universe—the glowing imagination 
that conjured up visions of beauty born, as we fondly 
think, for immortality—the aspiring soul and vaulting 
ambition that founded or overturned empires and 
shook the world—are they now no more than a few 
mouldering bones or a handful of ashes under their 
marble monuments? The mind of most men revolts 
from a conclusion so derogatory to what they deem 
the dignity of human nature; and so to satisfy at 
once the promptings of the imagination and the 


394 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


impulse of the heart, men gradually elevate their 
dead to the rank of saints and heroes, who in course 
of time may easily pass by an almost insensible 
transition to the supreme place of deities. It is thus 
that, almost as far back as we can trace the gropings 
of the human mind, man has been perpetually creating 
gods in his own likeness. 


CLXIII 
- EUHEMERISM 1? 


Whatever we may think of Euhemerism as a 
universal explanation of the gods, there can be no 
doubt that in many lands the ranks of the celestial 
hierarchy have been largely recruited by the ghosts 
of men of flesh and blood. But there appears to be 
a general tendency to allow the origin of the human 
gods to fall into the background and to confuse them 
with the true original deities, who from the beginning 
have always been deities and nothing else. The 
tendency may sometimes be accentuated by a deliberate 
desire to cast a veil over the humble birth and modest 
beginning of these now worshipful beings; but 
probably the obliteration of the distinction between 
the two classes of divinities is usually a simple result 
of oblivion and the lapse of time. Once a man is 
dead, his figure, which bulked so large and so clear 
to his contemporaries, begins to fade and melt away 
into something vague and indistinct, until, if he was 
a person of no importance, he is totally forgotten ; 
or, if he was one whose actions or thoughts deeply 
influenced his fellows for good or evil, his memory 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. ii. pp. 69-70. 


GREAT MEN AS FOUNDERS OF RELIGIONS 395 


lingers in after generations, growing ever dimmer 
and it may be looming ever larger through the long 
vista of the ages, as the evening mist appears to 
magnify the orb of the descending sun. Thus 
naturally and insensibly, as time goes on, our mortal 
nature fades or brightens into the immortal and 
divine. 


CLXIV 


GREAT MEN AS FOUNDERS OF RELIGIONS 3 


If Osiris and Christ have been the centres of 
the like enthusiastic devotion, may not the secret of 
their influence have been similar? If Christ lived 
the life and died the death of a man on earth, may not 
Osiris have done so likewise? The immense and 
enduring popularity of his worship speaks in favour 
of the supposition; for all the other great religious 
or semi-religious systems which have won for them- 
selves a permanent place in the affections of mankind 
have been founded by individual great men, who 
by their personal life and example exerted a power 
of attraction such as no cold abstractions, no pale 
products of the collective wisdom or folly could ever 
exert on the minds and hearts of humanity. Thus 
it was with Buddhism, with Confucianism, with 
Christianity, and with Mohammedanism; and thus 
it may well have been with the religion of Osiris. 
Certainly we shall do less violence to the evidence if 
we accept the unanimous tradition of ancient Egypt 
on this point than if we resolve the figure of Osiris 
into a myth pure and simple. And when we consider 
that from the earliest to the latest times Egyptian 

1 The Golden Bough, Part IV. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. ii. pp. 159-160. 


396 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


kings were worshipped as gods both in life and in 
death, there appears to be nothing extravagant or 
improbable in the view that one of them by his personal 
qualities excited a larger measure of devotion than 
usual during his life and was remembered with fonder 
affection and deeper reverence after his death; till 
in time his beloved memory, dimmed, transfigured, 
and encircled with a halo of glory by the mists of 
time, grew into the dominant religion of his people. 
At least this theory is reasonable enough to deserve 
a serious consideration. If we accept it, we may 
suppose that the mythical elements, which legend 
undoubtedly ascribed to Osiris, were later accretions 
which gathered about his memory like ivy about 
a ruin. There is no improbability in such a supposi- 
tion; on the contrary, all analogy is in its favour, 
for nothing is more certain than that myths grow like 
weeds or flowers round the great historical figures of 
the past. 


CLXV 
DEMETER AND IMMORTALITY}? 


Surveying the evidence as a whole, we may say 
that from the myth of Demeter and Persephone, 
from their ritual, from their representations in art, 
from the titles which they bore, from the offerings 
of first-fruits which were presented to them, and from 
the names applied to the cereals, we are fairly entitled 
to conclude that in the mind of the ordinary Greek 
the two goddesses were essentially personifications of 
the corn, and that in this germ the whole efflorescence 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. i. 
PP. 90-91. 


DEMETER AND IMMORTALITY 397 


of their religion finds implicitly its explanation. 
But to maintain this is not to deny that in the long 
course of religious evolution high moral and spiritual 
conceptions were grafted on this simple original 
stock and blossomed out into fairer flowers than the 
bloom of the barley and the wheat. Above all, the 
thought of the seed buried in the earth in order to 
spring up to new and higher life readily suggested 
a comparison with human destiny, and strengthened 
the hope that for man too the grave may be but the 
beginning of a better and happier existence in some 
brighter world unknown. This simple and natural 
reflection seems perfectly sufficient to explain the 
association of the Corn Goddess at Eleusis with the 
mystery of death and the hope of a blissful immor- 
tality. For that the ancients regarded initiation in 
the Eleusinian mysteries as a key to unlock the gates 
of Paradise appears to be proved by the allusions 
which well-informed writers among them drop to 
the happiness in store for the initiated hereafter. No 
doubt it is easy for us to discern the flimsiness of the 
logical foundation on which such high hopes were 
built. But drowning men clutch at straws, and we 
need not wonder that the Greeks, like ourselves, 
with death before them and a great love of life in their 
hearts, should not have stopped to weigh with too 
nice a hand the arguments that told for and against 
the prospect of human immortality. The reasoning 
that satisfied St. Paul and has brought comfort to 
untold thousands of sorrowing Christians, standing 
by the death-bed or the open grave of their loved 
ones, was good enough to pass muster with ancient 
pagans, when they too bowed their heads under the 
burden of grief, and, with the taper of life burning 


398 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


low in the socket, looked forward into the darkness 
of the unknown. Therefore we do no indignity to 
the myth of Demeter and Persephone—one of the few 
myths in which the sunshine and clarity of the Greek 
genius are crossed by the shadow and mystery of 
death—when we trace its origin to some of the most 
familiar, yet eternally affecting aspects of nature, 
to the melancholy gloom and decay of autumn and 
to the freshness, the brightness, and the verdure of 


spring. 
CLXVI 
DEATH AND THE ROSES! 


Thus interpreted the death of Adonis is not the 
natural decay of vegetation in general under the 
summer heat or the winter cold; it is the violent 
destruction of the corn by man, who cuts it down on 
the field, stamps it to pieces on the threshing-floor, 
and grinds it to powder in the mill. That this was 
indeed the principal aspect in which Adonis presented 
himself in later times to the agricultural peoples of 
the Levant, may be admitted; but whether from the 
beginning he had been the corn, and nothing but the 
corn, may be doubted. At an earlier period he may 
have been to the herdsman, above all, the tender 
herbage which sprouts after rain, offering rich pasture 
to the lean and hungry cattle. Earlier still he may 
have embodied the spirit of the nuts and berries which 
the autumn woods yield to the savage hunter and his 
squaw. And just as the husbandman must propitiate 
the spirit of the corn which he consumes, so the herds- 
man must appease the spirit of the grass and leaves 
1 The Golden Bough, Part IV. Adonis, Attis, Osiris, vol. i. pp. 232-235. 


DEATH AND THE ROSES 399 


which his cattle munch, and the hunter must soothe 
the spirit of the roots which he digs, and of the fruits 
which he gathers from the bough. In all cases the 
propitiation of the injured and angry sprite would 
naturally comprise elaborate excuses and apologies, 
accompanied by loud lamentations at his decease 
whenever, through some deplorable accident or neces- 
sity, he happened to be murdered as well as robbed. 
Only we must bear in mind that the savage hunter 
and herdsman of those early days had probably not 
yet attained to the abstract idea of vegetation in 
general; and that accordingly, so far as Adonis 
existed for them at all, he must have been the Adon 
or lord of each individual tree and plant rather than 
a personification of vegetable life as a whole. Thus 
there would be as many Adonises as there were trees 
and shrubs, and each of them might expéct to receive 
satisfaction for any damage done to his person or 
property. And year by year, when the trees were 
deciduous, every Adonis would seem to bleed to death 
with the red leaves of autumn and to come to life again 
with the fresh green of spring. 

There is reason to think that in early times 
Adonis was sometimes personated by a living man 
who died a violent death in the character of the god. 
Further, there is evidence which suggests that among 
the agricultural peoples of the Eastern Mediterranean 
the corn-spirit, by whatever name he was known, 
was often represented, year after year, by human 
victims slain on the harvest-field. If that was so, it 
seems likely that the propitiation of the corn-spirit 
would tend to fuse to some extent with the worship 
of the dead. For the spirits of these victims might 
be thought to return to life in the ears which they had 


400 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


fattened with their blood, and to die a second death 
at the reaping of the corn. Now the ghosts of those 
who have perished by violence are surly and apt to 
wreak their vengeance on their slayers whenever an 
opportunity offers. Hence the attempt to appease 
the souls of the slaughtered victims would naturally 
blend, at least in the popular conception, with the 
attempt to pacify the slain corn-spirit. And as the 


dead came back in the sprouting corn, so they might ~ 


be thought to return in the spring flowers, waked from 
their long sleep by the soft vernal airs. They had 
been laid to their rest under the sod. What more 
natural than to imagine that the violets and the 
hyacinths, the roses and the anemones, sprang from 
their dust, were empurpled or incarnadined by their 
blood, and contained some portion of their spirit ? 
‘“‘T sometimes think that never blows so red 
The Rose as where some buried Caesar bled ; 


That every Hyacinth the Garden wears 
Dropt in her Lap from some once lovely Head. 


‘* And this reviving Herb whose tender Green 
Fledges the River-Lip on which we lean— 
Ah, lean upon it lightly, for who knows 
From what once lovely Lip it springs unseen ? ”’ 


In the summer after the battle of Landen, the 
most sanguinary battle of the seventeenth century in 
Europe, the earth, saturated with the blood of twenty 
thousand slain, broke forth into millions of poppies, 
and the traveller who passed that vast sheet of scarlet 
might well fancy that the earth had indeed given up 
her dead. At Athens the great Commemoration of 
the Dead fell in spring about the middle of March, 
when the early flowers are in bloom. Then the dead 
were believed to rise from their graves and go about 


DEATH AND THE ROSES 4o1 


the streets, vainly endeavouring to enter the temples 
and the dwellings, which were barred against these 
perturbed spirits with ropes, buckthorn, and pitch. 
The name of the festival, according to the most obvious 
and natural interpretation, means the Festival of 
Flowers, and the title would fit well with the substance 
of the ceremonies if at that season the poor ghosts 
were indeed thought to creep from the narrow house 
with the opening flowers. There may therefore be a 
measure of truth in the theory of Renan, who saw 
in the worship of Adonis a dreamy voluptuous cult of 
death, conceived not as the King of Terrors, but as an 
insidious enchanter who lures his victims to himself 
and lulls them into an eternal sleep. The infinite 
charm of nature in the Lebanon, he thought, lends 
itself to religious emotions of this sensuous, visionary 
sort, hovering vaguely between pain and pleasure, 
between slumber and tears. It would doubtless be a 
mistake to attribute to Syrian peasants the worship 
of a conception so purely abstract as that of death in 
general. Yet it may be true that in their simple minds 
the thought of the reviving spirit of vegetation was 
blent with the very concrete notion of the ghosts of 
the dead, who come to life again in spring days with 
the early flowers, with the tender green of the corn and 
the many-tinted blossoms of the trees. Thus their 
views of the death and resurrection of nature would 
be coloured by their views of the death and resurrec- 
tion of man, by their personal sorrows and hopes and 
fears. In like manner we cannot doubt that Renan’s 
theory of Adonis was itself deeply tinged by pas- 
sionate memories, memories of the slumber akin to 
death which sealed his own eyes on the slopes of 


the Lebanon, memories of the sister who sleeps in 
2D 


Bea bebe, hs Mi Be. 


402 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


the land of Adonis never again to wake with the 
anemones and the roses. 


CLXVII 
THE MORTALITY OF THE GODS? 


At an early stage of his intellectual development 
man deems himself naturally immortal, and imagines 
that were it not for the baleful arts of sorcerers, who 
cut the vital thread prematurely short, he would live 
for ever. The illusion, so flattering to human wishes 
and hopes, is still current among many savage tribes 
at the present day, and it may be supposed to have 
prevailed universally in that Age of Magic which 
appears to have everywhere preceded the Age of 
Religion. But in time the sad truth of human mor- 
tality was borne in upon our primitive philosopher 
with a force of demonstration which no prejudice 
could resist and no sophistry dissemble. Among the 
manifold influences which combined to wring from 
him a reluctant-assent to the necessity of death must 
be numbered the growing influence of religion, which, 
by exposing the vanity of magic and of all the extra- 
vagant pretensions built on it, gradually lowered man’s 
proud and defiant attitude towards nature, and taught 
him to believe that there are mysteries in the universe 
which his feeble intellect can never fathom, and forces 
which his puny hands can never control. Thus more 
and more he learned to bow to the inevitable and to 
console himself for the brevity and the sorrows of life 
on earth by the hope of a blissful eternity hereafter. 
But if he reluctantly acknowledged the existence of 

1 The Golden Bough, Part Ill. The Dying God, pp. 1-3. 


THE SLAYING OF THE MAN-GOD 403 


beings at once superhuman and supernatural, he was 
as yet far from suspecting the width and the depth of 
the gulf which divided him from them. The gods 
with whom his imagination now peopled the darkness 
of the unknown were indeed admitted by him to be his 
superiors in knowledge and in power, in the joyous 
splendour of their life and in the length of its duration. 
But, though he knew it not, these glorious and awful 
beings were merely, like the spectre of the Brocken, 
the reflections of his own diminutive personality 
exaggerated into gigantic proportions by distance and 
by the mists and clouds of ignorance upon which they 
were cast. Man in fact created gods in his own like- 
ness, and being himself mortal he naturally supposed 
his creatures to be in the same sad predicament. 


CLXVIII 
THE SLAYING OF THE MAN-GOD ! 


The practice of putting divine men and particularly 
divine kings to death, which seems to have been 
common at a particular stage in the evolution of 
society and religion, was a crude but pathetic attempt 
to disengage an immortal spirit from its mortal 
envelope, to arrest the forces of decomposition in 
nature by retrenching with ruthless hand the first 
ominous symptoms of decay. We may smile if we 
please at the vanity of these and the like efforts to 
stay the inevitable decline, to bring the relentless 
revolution of the great wheel to a stand, to keep youth’s 
fleeting roses for ever fresh and fair; but perhaps in 
spite of every disillusionment, when we contemplate 

1 The Golden Bough, Part Ill. The Dying God, Preface, pp. v-vi. 


404 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


the seemingly endless vistas of knowledge which have 
been opened up even within our own generation, many 
of us may cherish in our heart of hearts a fancy, if not 
a hope, that some loophole of escape may after all be 
discovered from the iron walls of the prison-house 
which threaten to close on and crush us; that, groping 
about in the darkness, mankind may yet chance to lay 
hands on ‘‘ that golden key that opes the palace of 
eternity ’’, and so to pass from this world of shadows 
and sorrows to a world of untroubled light and joy. 
If this is a dream, it is surely a happy and innocent 
one, and to those who would wake us from it we may 
murmur with Michael Angelo, 


“* Pero non mi destar, deh! parla basso.” 


CLXIX 
THE EATING OF A GOD! 


It is now easy to understand why a savage should 
desire to partake of the flesh of an animal or man 
whom he regards as divine. By eating the body of the 
god he shares in the god's attributes and powers. And 
when the god is a corn-god, the corn is his proper 
body ; when he is a vine-god, the juice of the grape is 
his blood ; and so by eating the bread and drinking 
the wine the worshipper partakes of the real body and 
blood of his god. Thus the drinking of wine in the 
rites of a vine-god like Dionysus is not an act of 
revelry, it is a solemn sacrament. Yet a time comes 
when reasonable men find it hard to understand how 
any one in his senses can suppose that by eating bread 


1 The Golden Bough, Part V. Spirits of the Corn and of the Wild, vol. ii. 
pp. 167-168. 


“i 


THE DYING GOD AS REDEEMER 405 


or drinking wine he consumes the body or blood of a 
deity. ““ When we call corn Ceres and wine Bacchus ”’, 
says Cicero, “we use a common figure of speech ; 
but do you imagine that anybody is so insane as to 
believe that the thing he feeds upon is a god?”’ In 
writing thus the Roman philosopher little foresaw that 
in Rome itself, and in the countries which have 
derived their creed from her, the belief which he here 
stigmatizes as insane was destined to persist for 
thousands of years, as a cardinal doctrine of religion, 
among peoples who pride themselves on their religious 
enlightenment by comparison with the blind super- 
stitions of pagan antiquity. So little can even the 
greatest minds of one generation foresee the devious 
track which the religious faith of mankind will pursue 
in after ages. 


CLXX 
THE DYING GOD AS REDEEMER}! 


The dying god has sometimes been used as a 
scapegoat to free his worshippers from the troubles 
of all sorts with which life on earth is beset. I have 
sought to trace this curious usage to its origin, 
to decompose the idea of the divine scapegoat 
into the elements out of which it appears to be com- 
pounded. If I am right, the idea resolves itself into 
a simple confusion between the material and the 
immaterial, between the real possibility of transferring 
a physical load to other shoulders and the supposed 
possibility of transferring our bodily and mental 
ailments to another who will bear them for us. When 
we survey the history of this pathetic fallacy from its 

1 The Golden Bough, Part V1. The Scapegoat, Preface, p. v. 


406 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


crude inception in savagery to its full development 
in the speculative theology of civilized nations, we 
cannot but wonder at the singular power which the 
human mind possesses of transmuting the leaden dross 
of superstition into a glittering semblance of gold. 
Certainly in nothing is this alchemy of thought more 
conspicuous than in the process which has refined the 
base and foolish custom of the scapegoat into the 
sublime conception of a God who dies to take away 
the sins of the world. 


CLXXI 


THE THEORY OF DEICIDE}? 


It: was in the religious ritual of the Aztecs that the 
theory of the dying god found its most systematic 
and most tragic expression.. There is nothing, so far as 
I am aware, to show that the men and women, who | 
in Mexico died cruel deaths in the character of gods 
and goddesses, were regarded as scapegoats by their 
worshippers and executioners ; the intention of slaying 
them seems rather to have been to reinforce by a river 
of human blood the tide of life which might else grow 
stagnant and stale in the veins of the deities. Hence 
the Aztec ritual, which prescribed the slaughter, the 
roasting alive, and the flaying of men and women in 
order that the gods might remain for ever young and 
strong, conforms to the general theory of deicide which 
I have suggested. On that theory death is a portal 
through which gods and men alike must pass to 
escape the decrepitude of age and to attain the vigour 
of eternal youth. The conception may be said to 


1 The Golden Bough, Part VI. The Scapegoat, Preface, pp. v-vi. 


THE SACRIFICE OF A GOD 407 


culminate in the Brahmanical doctrine that in the 
daily sacrifice the body of the Creator is broken anew 
for the salvation of the world. 


CLXXII 


THE SACRIFICE OF A GOD FOR THE 
SALVATION OF THE WORLD! 


It is possible that the sacrifices of deified men, 
performed for the salvation of the world, may have 
helped to beget the notion that the universe or some 
part of it was originally created out of the bodies of 
gods offered up in sacrifice. Certainly it is curious 
that notions of this sort meet us precisely in parts of 
the world where such sacrifices appear to have been 
regularly accomplished. Thus in ancient Mexico, 
where the sacrifice of human beings in the character 
of gods formed a conspicuous feature of the national 
religion, it is said that in the beginning, when as yet 
the light of day was not, the gods created the sun to 
illumine the earth by voluntarily burning themselves 
in the fire, leaping one after the other into the flames 
of a great furnace. Again, in the Babylonian Genesis 
the great god Bel created the world by cleaving the 
female monster Tiamat in twain and using the severed 
halves of her body to form the heaven and the earth. 
Afterwards, perceiving that the earth was waste and 
void, he obligingly ordered one of the gods to cut 
off his, the Creator’s, own head, and with the flowing 
blood mixed with clay he kneaded a paste out of 
which he moulded men and animals. Similarly in a 
hymn of the Rig Veda we read how the gods created 

1 The Golden Bough, Part VI. The Scapegoat, pp. 409-411. 


408 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


the world out of the dismembered body of the great 
primordial giant Purushu. The sky was made out 
of his head, the earth out of his feet, the sun out of 
his eye, and the moon out of his mind; animals and 
men were also engendered from his dripping fat or 
his limbs, and the great gods Indra and Agni sprang 
from his mouth. The crude, nay savage, account of 
creation thus set forth by the poet was retained by 
the Brahman doctors of a later age and refined by 
them into a subtle theory of sacrifice in general. 
According to them the world was not only created 
in the beginning by the sacrifice of the Creator 
Prajapati, the Lord of Creatures; to this day it is 
renewed and preserved solely by a repetition of that 
mystic sacrifice in the daily sacrificial ritual celebrated 
by the Brahmans. Every day the body of the 
Creator and Saviour is broken anew, and every day 
it is pieced together for the restoration and conserva- 
tion of a universe which otherwise must dissolve 
and be shattered into fragments. Thus is the world 
continually created afresh by the self-sacrifice of the 
deity ; and, wonderful to relate, the priest who ‘offers 
the sacrifice identifies himself with the Creator, and 
so by the very act of sacrificing renews the universe 
and keeps up uninterrupted the revolution of time 
and matter. All things depend on his beneficent, 
nay divine activity, from the heaven above to the earth 
beneath, from the greatest god to the meanest worm, 
from the sun and moon to. the humblest blade of 
grass and the minutest particle of dust. Happily 
this grandiose theory of sacrifice as a process essential 
to the salvation of the world does not oblige the priest 
to imitate his glorious prototype by dismembering his 
own body and shedding his own blood on the altar ; 


THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY 409 


on the contrary, a comfortable corollary deduced from 
it holds out to him the pleasing prospect of living for 
the unspeakable benefit of society to a good old age, 
indeed of stretching out the brief span of human 
existence to a full hundred years. Well is it, not only 
for the priest but for mankind, when with the slow 
progress of civilization and humanity the hard facts 
of a cruel ritual have thus been softened and diluted 
into the nebulous abstractions of a mystical theology. 


CLXXIII 
THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY}? 


It is impossible not to be struck by the strength, 
and perhaps we may say the universality, of the natural 
belief in immortality among the savage races of 
mankind. With them a life after death is not a matter 
of speculation and conjecture, of hope and fear; it 
is a practical certainty which the individual as little 
dreams of doubting as he doubts the reality of his 
conscious existence. He assumes it without inquiry 
and acts upon it without hesitation, as if it were one 
of the best-ascertained truths within the limits of 
human experience. The belief influences his attitude 
towards the higher powers, the conduct of his daily 
life, and his behaviour towards his fellows; more 
than that, it regulates to a great extent the relations 
of independent communities to each other. For the 
state of war, which normally exists between many, 
if not most, neighbouring savage tribes, springs in 
large measure directly from their belief in immortality ; 
since one of the commonest motives for hostility is 


1 The Belief in Immortality, vol. i. pp. 468-471. 


410 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


a desire to appease the angry ghosts of friends, who 
are supposed to have perished by the baleful arts 
of sorcerers in another tribe, and who, if vengeance 
is not inflicted on their real or imaginary murderers, 
will wreak their fury on their undutiful fellow-tribes- 
men. Thus the belief in immortality has not merely 
coloured the outlook of the individual upon the world ; 
it has deeply affected the social and political relations 
. of humanity in all ages; for the religious wars and 
persecutions, which distracted and devastated Europe 
for ages, were only the civilized equivalents of the 
battles and murders which the fear of ghosts has in- 
stigated amongst almost all races of savages of whom 
we possess a record. Regarded from this point of 
view, the faith in a life hereafter has been sown like 
dragons’ teeth on the earth and has brought forth crop 
after crop of armed men, who have turned their swords 
against each other. And when we consider further 
the gratuitous and wasteful destruction of property as 
well as of life which is involved in sacrifices to the dead, 
we must admit that, with all its advantages, the belief 
in immortality has entailed heavy economical losses 
upon the races—and they are practically all the races 
of the world—who have indulged in this dear-bought 
luxury. It is not for me to estimate the extent and 
gravity of the consequences, moral, social, political, and 
economic, which flow directly from the belief in im- 
mortality. I can only point to some of them and com- 
mend them to the serious attention of historians and 
economists, as well as of moralists and theologians. 
But even when we have left out of account the 
practical consequences of the belief, we are still con- 
fronted by the question of its truth or falsehood. 
I must leave to others the delicate task of placing 


THE QUESTION OF IMMORTALITY All 


the evidence in the scales and saying whether it 
inclines the balance for or against the truth of this 
momentous belief, which has been so potent for good 
or ill in history. In every inquiry much depends 
upon the point of view from which the inquirer 
approaches his subject; he will see it in different 
proportions and in different lights according to the 
angle and the distance from which he regards it. 
The subject under discussion in the present case is 
human nature itself; and, as we all know, men have 
formed very different estimates of themselves and 
their species. On the one hand, there are those who 
love to dwell on the grandeur and dignity of man, 
and who swell with pride at the contemplation of the 
triumphs which his genius has achieved in the visionary 
world of imagination as well as in the realm of nature. 
Surely, they say, such a glorious creature was not 
born for mortality, to be snuffed out like a candle, 
to fade like a flower, to pass away like a breath. Is 
all that penetrating intellect, that creative fancy, 
that vaulting ambition, those noble passions, those 
far-reaching hopes, to come to nothing, to shrivel 
up into a pinch of dust? It is not so, it cannot be. 
Man is the flower of this wide world, the lord of 
creation, the crown and consummation of all things, 
and it is to wrong him and his creator to imagine that 
the grave is the end of all. To those who take this 
lofty view of human nature it is easy and obvious 
to find in the similar beliefs’ of savages a welcome 
confirmation of their own cherished faith, and to 
insist that a conviction so widely spread and so firmly 
held must be based on some principle, call it instinct 
or intuition or what you will, which is deeper than 
logic and cannot be confuted by reasoning. 


412 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


On the other hand, there are those who take a 
different view of human nature, and who find in its 
contemplation a source of humility rather than of 
pride. They remind- us how weak, how ignorant, 
how short-lived is man, how infirm of purpose, how 
purblind of vision, how subject to pain and suffering, 
to. diseases that torture the body and wreck the mind. 
They say that if the few short years of his life are 


not wasted in idleness and vice, they are spent for’ 


the most part in a perpetually recurring round of 
trivialities, in the satisfaction of merely animal wants, 
in eating, drinking, and slumber. When they survey 
the history of mankind as a whole, they find the record 
chequered and stained by folly and crime, by broken 
faith, insensate ambition, wanton aggression, injustice, 
cruelty, and lust, and seldom illumined by the mild 
radiance of wisdom and virtue. And when they turn 
their eyes from man himself to the place he occupies in 


the universe, how are they overwhelmed by a sense of 


his littleness and insignificance! They see the earth 
which he inhabits dwindle to a speck in the unimagin- 
able infinities of space, and the brief span of his 
existence shrink into a moment in the inconceivable 
infinities of time. And they ask, Shall a creature so 
puny and frail claim to live for ever, to outlast not only 
the present. starry system but every other that, when 
earth and sun and stars have crumbled into dust, shall 
be built upon their ruins in the long long hereafter ? 
It is not so, it cannot be. The claim is nothing but the 
outcome of exaggerated self-esteem, of inflated vanity; 
it is the claim of a moth, shrivelled in the flame of a 
candle, to outlive the sun, the claim of a worm to 
survive the destruction of this terrestrial globe in 
which it burrows. Those who take this view of the 


THE ASSUMPTION OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD = 413 


pettiness and transitoriness of man compared with the 
vastness and permanence of the universe find little in 
the beliefs of the savages to alter their opinion. They 
see in savage conceptions of the soul and its destiny 
nothing but a product of childish ignorance, the 
hallucinations of hysteria, the ravings of insanity, or 
the concoctions of deliberate fraud and imposture. 
They dismiss the whole of them as a pack of super- 
stitions and lies, unworthy the serious attention of a 
rational mind; and they say that if such drivellings 
do not refute the belief in immortality, as indeed from 
the nature of things they cannot do, they are at least 
fitted to invest its high-flown pretensions with an air of 
ludicrous absurdity. 

Such are the two opposite views which I conceive 
may be taken of the savage testimony to the survival 
of our conscious personality after death. I do not 
presume to adopt the one or the other. I leave the 
reader to draw his own conclusion. 


CLXXIV 
THE ASSUMPTION OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD? 


The mind of man refuses to acquiesce in the 
phenomena of sense. By an instinctive, an irresistible 
impulse it is driven to seek for something beyond, 
something which it assumes to be more real and 
abiding than the shifting phantasmagoria of this 
sensible world. This search and this assumption are 
not peculiar to philosophers; they are shared in- 
varying degrees by every man and woman born into 
the world. 

1 The Worship of Nature, vol. i. pp. 1-3- 


4t4 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


Take, for example, a ploughman. He wakes at 
cock-crow and prepares to begin the familiar round 
of labour. He sees his wife lighting the cottage fire and 
preparing his morning meal, his children gathering 
expectant round the table: he hears the crackling of 
the fire on the hearth, the lowing of cows, the distant 
bleating of sheep and barking of dogs. And with these 
sights before his eyes and these sounds in his ears he 
has more or less consciously in his mind the scene 
that awaits him in the fields and on the way to it. He 
has a vision, for a vision it is, of the village church and 
churchyard with its solemn yews and its grassy mounds 
sleeping in the morning sunshine; of the turn in the 
road where he catches a glimpse of a winding river 
and of far blue hills; of the gate opening into the 
field where he is to toil till evening, pacing behind 
the plough drawn by the patient horses up and down 
the long furrows of upturned brown earth. He does 
not reflect on these things, still less does he question 
their reality. He assumes that they exist somewhere 
outside and independently of him, and that other eyes 
will see the old familiar scenes and that other ears will 
hear the old familiar sounds when his own are stopped 
for ever in the churchyard mould. 

In the same way every one of us is perpetually, 
every hour of the day, implicitly constructing a purely 
imaginary world behird the immediate sensations of 
light and colour, of touch, of sound, and of scent which 
are all that we truly apprehend; and oddly enough 
it is this visionary world, the creation of thought, 
which we dub the real world in contradistinction to the 
fleeting data of sense. Thus viewed, the mind of man 
may be likened to a wizard who, by the help of spirits 
or the waving of his magic wand, summons up scenes 


THE ASSUMPTION OF AN EXTERNAL WORLD 415 


of enchantment which, deceived by the very perfection 
of his art, he mistakes for realities. Only by deliberate 
reflection is it possible to perceive how unsubstantial, 
in the last resort, is the seemingly solid structure of 
what we call the material universe. In the literal 
acceptation of the word, it consists of such stuff as 
dreams are made of. The only difference between the 
dreams of sleep and the dreams which we call our 
waking life is the greater orderliness which distin- 
guishes the latter. Their succession is so-regular that 
to a great extent we can predict it with confidence, 
and experience daily and hourly confirms the pre- 
diction. We anticipate, for example, the sights that 
will meet us when we pass into the garden or the 
neighbouring street, and the anticipation is invariably 
fulfilled. This fulfilment, countless times repeated, of 
our expectation is perhaps the principal cause, as 
certainly it is the best justification, of our instinctive 
belief in the reality of an external world. It is this 
regularity in the succession of phenomena which 
breeds in our mind the conception of a cause; in the 
last analysis cause is simply invariable sequence. 
The observation of such sequences is essential to the 
conduct, nay to the existence, of life, not only in men 
but in animals ; with its help we are able to foresee the 
future and to adapt ourselves to it ; without it we must 
perish prematurely. 

But while mankind in general tacitly assumes that 
behind the phenomena of sense there is a real world 
of a more substantial and abiding nature, there are 
‘men who occupy themselves by predilection with the 
investigation of that assumed external world. They 
ask, Is there really such a world hidden behind the 
veil of sensible phenomena ? and if so, what are its 


416 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


origin and nature? and what laws, if any, does it 
obey ? The men who ask these questions as to the 
ultimate reality of the world are philosophers in the 
widest sense of the word, and, roughly speaking, their 
answers fall into one of two classes according as they 
find the ultimate reality of the world in matter or in 
mind. On the one view, the ultimate reality is dead, 
unconscious, inhuman ; on the other view, it is living, 
conscious, and more or less analogous to human 
feeling and intelligence ; according to the one, things 
existed first and mind was developed out of them 
afterwards ; according to the other, mind existed first 
and created, or at all events set in order, the realm of 
things. On the one view, the world is essentially 
material; on the other, it is essentially spiritual. 
Broadly speaking, science accepts the former view, at 
least as a working hypothesis ; religion unhesitatingly 
embraces the latter. 


CLXXV 


THE INCAPACITY OF THE MIND TO GRASP 
THE INFINITE? 


Thought perpetually outstrips sense in the in- 
finitely little as in the infinitely great; however far 
we extend the field of vision, whether to stars of 
unimaginable distance, or to corpuscles of unimagin- 
able minuteness, thought still passes. beyond them in 
the endless search after the real, the invisible, the 
eternal. We stand, as it were, at a point between two 
infinities, neither of which we can ever hope to reach, 
yet both of which, by the pressure of some force un- 
known, we are perpetually urged to pursue. Thought 

1 The Worship of Nature, vol. i. pp. 12-13. 


INCAPACITY OF MIND TO GRASP THE INFINITE 417 


is poised on a knife-edge between two abysses, into 
the unfathomable depths of which she is for ever 
peering, till her sight grows dim and her brain reels 
in the effort to pierce the thick gloom that closes the 
vista on either hand. Yet we understate the mystery 
that compasses about our little life when we speak of 
it as if it were only twofold, the mystery of the in- 
finitely great and the mystery of the infinitely small in 
space; for is there not also the twofold mystery of 
time, the mystery of the infinite past and the mystery 
of the infinite future? Thus our metaphor of thought 
poised between two abysses needs to be corrected and 
expanded: not two, but four infinities, four gulfs, 
four bottomless chasms yawn at her feet; and down 
into them some Tempter—or is it some bright angel ? 
—whispering at her ear, perpetually lures her to 
plunge, only, it would seem, to beat and flutter her 
ineffectual wings in the impenetrable darkness. Yet 
even here, unappalled by the apparently insoluble 
nature of the enigma, the human mind refuses to 
acquiesce in these manifold antitheses. Of late, if I 
apprehend it aright, philosophy or science (for on 
fundamental questions these two sisters, after following 
the circle of human knowledge in opposite directions, 
tend to meet and kiss at last), philosophy or science 
has recently been at work to simplify the ultimate 
problems by reducing the seemingly irreducible prin- 
ciples of space and time to a single reality. It is not 
for me to pronounce an opinion on this bold general- 
ization. I refer to it only as perhaps the latest effort 
of the philosophic or scientific mind to unify and 
harmonize the apparently heterogeneous and dis- 
cordant constituents of the universe. 


418 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


CLXXVI 
MATERIALISM AND SPIRITUALISM! 


Both theories aim at ascertaining and defining the 
ultimate reality ; the one discovers it in hydrogen and 
electricity, the other in a deity. How far the two 
supplement or conflict with each other, is a nice 
question, but an adequate discussion of it would 
require a combination of philosophic and scientific 
attainments to which I can lay no claim. All that 
I desire to point out is that both hypotheses aim at 
explaining and justifying our instinctive belief in 
the reality of a world beyond the immediate data of 
sense. This is no less true of the materialistic than 
of the spiritualistic hypothesis ; for we must constantly 
bear in mind that the atoms and electrons into which 
modern science resolves the material world are as 
truly beyond the reach of our senses as are gnomes 
and fairies, and any other spiritual beings. It is true 
that we may have much better reasons for believing 
in the existence of atoms and electrons than of ghosts 


and hobgoblins; but in themselves atoms and elec- 


trons, ghosts and hobgoblins are equally hypothetical 
and therefore, in the strict sense of the word, imaginary, 
beings, invented to account for sensible phenomena. 
The supposed effects of both we can perceive, but not 
the things themselves. We can see, for example, the 
grassy ring which is said to be made by the feet of 
fairies dancing their rounds by moonlight on the green- 
sward, but the fairies themselves we cannot see. We 
can perceive the bright line which is said to be the 


1 The Worship of Nature, vol. i. pp. 10-11. 


THE UNENDING SEARCH 419 


luminous trail left behind by an atom of helium shoot- 
ing athwart a darkened chamber ; but the atom itself 
escapes our purblind vision as completely as do the 
fairies. 

Even if, through some as yet undreamed-of re- 
finement of our scientific instruments, atoms and 
electrons should be brought within the ken of our 
senses, can we doubt that science would at once pro- 
ceed to analyse the now perceptible atoms and elec- 
trons into some minuter and imperceptible particles 
of matter, and so on to infinity? Already science 
assumes that every atom is, as it were, a little sun with 
planets in the form of electrons revolving about it. 
May it not be that each of these tiny suns comprises 
within itself a still tinier sun, or rather an incalculable 
number of such suns in the shape of atoms, and that 
in every one of these atoms of an atom a solar system, 
nay a whole starry universe, a miniature copy of ours, 
with all its wealth of vegetable and animal life, is, like 
our own, in process of evolution or decay ? Conversely, 
we may imagine that this universe of ours, which seems 
to us so inconceivably vast, is no more than an atom 
vibrating in a vaster universe; and so on to infinity. 


CLXXVII 
THE UNENDING SEARCH? 


Whichever hypothesis be adopted, the mind, in 
obedience to a fundamental law, seeks to form a con- 
ception which will simplify, and if possible unify, the 
multitudinous and seemingly heterogeneous pheno- 
mena of nature. Thus, on the materialistic hypothesis, 


1 The Worship of Nature, vol. i. pp. 3-5. 


420 MAN AND IMMORTALITY 


ancient Greek philosophers attempted to reduce the 
apparent multitude and diversity of things to a single 
element, whether it was water, or fire, or what not. 
Others, less ambitious, were content to postulate the 
existence of four distinct and irreducible elements, 
fire, air, earth, and water. For a long time modern 
chemistry continued to multiply the apparently ulti- 
mate and irreducible elements of which the material 
universe was believed to be composed, till the number 
of elements had reached some eighty-eight. But, as has 
been observed by an eminent philosopher of our time, 
science could not rest content with the theory that the 
universe was built up out of just eighty-eight different 
sorts of things, neither more nor less; to limit the kind 
of atoms to eighty-eight seemed as arbitrary as to limit 
the number of fundamental religious truths to thirty- - 
nine. in both cases the mind naturally craves for 
either more or less; and for the sake of unity and 
simplicity it prefers less rather than more. In the 
case of science that craving has in recent years been 
satisfied by the more or less probable reduction of all 
the old chemical elements to the single element of 
hydrogen, of which the rest would appear to be only 
multiples. Similarly in biology the theory of evolu- 
tion reduces the innumerable species of plants and 
animals to unity by deriving them all from a single 
simple type of living organism. 

Thus alike in regard to the organic and the in- 
organic world the science of to-day has attained to that 
unity and simplicity of conception which the human 
intellect imperiously demands if it is to comprehend 
in some measure the infinite complexity of the uni- 
verse, or rather of its shadows reflected on the illumined 
screen of the mind. Yet, as that complexity is in- 


THE UNENDING SEARCH 421 


finite, so the search for the ultimate unity is probably 
endless also. For we may suspect that the finality, 
which seems to crown the vast generalizations of 
science, is after all only illusory, and that the tempting 
unity and simplicity which they offer to the weary 
mind are not the goal but only halting-places in the 
unending march. The fair-seeming fruit of know- 
ledge too often turns out to be apples of Sodom. A 
closer inspection of the apparently simple result may 
reveal within it a fresh and as yet undreamed-of 
complexity, which in its turn may prove to be the 
starting-point of another quest, longer and more 
arduous than that which had yielded to the mind a 
brief and transient repose. For the thinker there is 
no permanent place of rest. He must move for ever 
forward, a pilgrim of the night eternally pressing 
towards the faint and glimmering illumination that 
eternally retreats before him, With Ulysses he may 
say that— 


** All experience is an arch wherethro’ 
Gleams that untravell’d world, whose margin fades 
For ever and for ever when I move.” 


INDEX 


Abstract ideas installed in the place 
of gods, 213 

Action the touchstone of belief, 36 

Adams, John Couch, English astrono- 
mer, 52 

Adonis, 260, 261; and Aphrodite, 
273; in Greece, 325; rites of, 
their resemblance to the Christian 
Easter, 331, 336; in relation to 
plant life, 398 sg.; the blood of, 399 

Advantages and disadvantages of a 
belief in ghosts and spirits, 352 sq. 

Aeolus, the god of winds, 309 

Africa, totemism in, 76, 304; poly- 
andry in, 165; levirate in, 165, 166 

Age of Magic, 217 sgq., 353, 402; of 
Stone, 217; of Religion, 353, 402 

Agni, the Indian fire-god, creation of, 
408 

Agriculture, origin of, 55, 93 s¢q.; 
woman’s part in the origin of, 95 sq. 

Agricultural stage of society, 304 

Akikuyu, a tribe of East Africa, 314, 


315 

Alaska, the Kenais of, 132 

Alchemy and chemistry, 283 

Alchemy of thought, 406 

Alexandria, 312 

All Souls, feast of, 332 

America, totemism in, 67, 75, 77, 304 

— North, the two-class system in, 
131 sg. - | 

Analogy of exogamy to scientific 
breeding, 135 sgg.; of magic to 
science, 242 sqq. 

Anatomy, comparative, 8 

Angelus bell, the, 294 

Animals, domestication of, 55; gods 
incarnate in, 305 sg.; savage 
beliefs as to the souls of, 365 sq. ; 
savage belief in the immortality and 
resurrection of, 366, 367 


Animism, 302 sg.; evolves into 
polytheism and monotheism, 308 
Sqq. 

Anthropologist, the, position of, 3; a 
pioneer of revolution, 31 sg. 

Anthropology, the birth of, 5, 7; 
physical, 6; social, 6, 23 sqq.; 
mental, 6; a science of origins, 
16 sg.; based on evolution theory, 
7; adheres to inductive method, 
30 sgg.; problems of, 59 sq. 

Apollo and Artemis, 316 

Arabs as conquerors, 234 

Aristotelian philosophy, revival of, 327 

Aristotle on the survival of the fittest, 
376 

Arnold, Matthew, 355 

Art, influence of totemism on, 96 sq. ; 
the handmaid of magic, 97 

Arunta, a tribe of Central Australia, 
88, 118, 119, 121 

Aryan, the primitive, 318 

Aryan family, 169, 170 

Aryans, 145, 151; primitive religion 
of the, 318 sq. 

Ashurbanipal and Sardanapalus, 274 

Assam, Mongoloid tribes of, 75 

Assisi and its basilica, 295 

Association of ideas, 211; mistaken, 
the basis of magic, 228, 243 sq. 

Assumption that nature is determined 
by immutable laws, 300; of an 
external world, 413 sgq. 

—— of the Virgin, festival of the, 
332, 333 

Astarte (Ishtar), Semitic goddess of 
love, 272 

the Heavenly Virgin, 329 

Athenian drama associated with Dio- 
nysus, 270 sq. 

Athens, commemoration of the dead 

- at, 400 


423 


424 INDEX 


Atoms and electrons, 418, 419 

Attis, 260, 261; and Cybele, 273; 
personated by priests, 273; death 
and resurrection of, in relation to 
Faster, 331 sg.; resurrection of, 
celebrated at the spring equinox, 
331; 332, 333 

Augustine, 325, 330 

Augustus, 232 

Australia, backwardness of aboriginal 
man in, 43 sg.; progress among 
the aborigines of, 44 sg.; totemism 
in, 73, 76, 77 s9g., 82, 93 5¢.; 
origin of exogamy in, 103 sqq.; 
relation of totemism to exogamy in, 
117 sgg.; exchange of daughters 
and sisters as wives in, 173 sgq. 

Central, theory of conception in 
tribes of, 80 sgqg., 88 sqgg.; violent 
alternations of the seasons in, 255 
$9q.; Magical ceremonies for the 
annual revival of nature in, 267 sq. 

Australian aborigines not degenerate, 
10; the most primitive totemic 
people known to us, 82; not abso- 
lutely primitive, 111 

traditions as to the origin of 
exogamy, IOI 

Avebury, Lord, 5 

Aversion to incest, its origin unknown, 
145 sgg.; conjecture as to origin 
of, 148 sqq. 

Avoidance of near relations, 107 sgq., 
139 sgg.; rules of, precautions 
against incest, 144; of certain words 
from superstitious motives, 286 sq. 

Aztec ritual, 406 : 


Babylon, festival of the Sacaea at, 
271 

Babylonians as conquerors, 234 

Babylonian tradition of creation, 356 

Backwardness of aboriginal man in 
Australia, 43 sg. 

Baganda, theory of conception among 
the, 88 

Bahima or Banyankole, a tribe of 
Uganda, 165 

Banks’ Islanders, primitive system of 
conceptional totemism among the, 
82 sg., 118 

Banks’ Islands, avoidance of wife’s 
mother in the, 142 

Bantu peoples of Africa, 134 

Barter of sisters in marriage, 168 


Basque hunter and bear, 363 

Beauty and the Beast, 91 

Bel, Babylonian god, the creator of 
the world, 407 

Belief and ritual, 36; and practice in 
religion, 297 sg.; in the omnipotence 
of demons, 284 sgq.; in immortality, 
302. See also Immortality 

Bells of the High Priest, 291 sgq.; 
sound of church, 293 sqq. 

Bengal, 289 

Berkeley’s theory of God, 202 

Bisection of a community the source 
of the classificatory system of 
relationship, 159 sq. 

Bisections, successive, of Australian 
tribes, 101 sg., 104, 113, 130, 159, 
161. See Dichotomies 

Blood feud, law of the, 98 

Body. of the Creator broken for the 
salvation of the world, 407, 408 

Brahmanical doctrine of sacrifice, 407, 
408 

Brahmanism, 324 

Breaches of exogamy commonly 
punished with death, 149 sg. 

Bread and wine the body and blood 
of a god, 404 sq. . 

Brocken, the spectre of the, 403 

Brother’s widow, custom of marrying, 
164 sgg. See Levirate 

Brothers and sisters, marriage of, 
prevented by two-class system, 101, 
105 sg., 108, 115; mutual avoid- 
ance of, 108, 109, 140 sg., 143, 144 

Brown, Professor A. R., 177 

Bryant, Jacob, 58 

Buddha, 51; and the transmigration 
of souls, 371 

Buddhism, 324; and Christianity, 
parallel between, 334 sgg.; and 
Empedocles, 372; and disbelief in 
a deity, 389; the founder of, 395 

Byron onthe Vesper Bell, 293 


Caffres, their theory of death, 351 

Californian Indians, 95 

Caltanisetta in Sicily, 322 

Cappadocia, date of the Crucifixion 
in, 331 

Carnival, effigy of, annually destroyed, 
279 

Carthage, 325 

Cast skins of serpents, immortality 
inferred from the, 355 sq. 


ee 


INDEX 


Castles of sand, 279 sg. 

Catholic Church, ritual of the, 297; 
symbolism of the, 312; on hell, 354 

Cattle, domestication of, 94; as 
objects of magic and religion, 269 

Cause, the notion of, 210 

Causes, the search for, 209; either 
perceived or inferred, 215 sg. 

Celibacy glorified by Buddhism and 
Christianity, 335 

Chemistry and alchemy, 283 

of the mind, 200, 270; on the 
number of the ultimate elements, 
420 

Children regarded as the father’s 
property before they were recognized 
as his offspring, 126 sq. 

Christ, 51, 395; Nativity of, supersed- 
ing the Nativity of the Sun, 329s¢.; 
and Attis, coincidence and resem- 
blance of their festivals of death 
and resurrection, 331, 332; their 
rivalry, 333 sq. 

Christian sacraments, heathen rites 
viewed as diabolic counterfeits of, 
328 

Christianity established by Constan- 
tine, 325; and Buddhism, parallel 
between, 334 sgq. 

Christmas instituted to supersede a 
festival of the Sun, 329 sq. 

Cicero on the eating of a god, 404 sq. 

Cimabue and St. Francis, 295 

Civilization evolved out of savagery, 
23 sgq., 42; served by medicine- 
men or magicians, 207 ; spread by 
conquering races, 234 

Clash of cultures, 34 sg. 

Classificatory and descriptive systems 
of relationship, 163 

system of relationship, its dis- 
covery, 68; its antiquity, 68; a corol- 
lary of group marriage, 133; its 
principle, 153 sgg.; its origin, 156 
sqq.; not a necessary stage in 
human history, 169 sqq. 

Club-houses for unmarried men, 145 

Codrington, Dr. R. H., 144, 145 

Coincidence of Christian and heathen 
festivals of death and resurrection, 

2 

Collective responsibility, principle of, 
its utility, 99 sq. 

Collectivism and individualism, 163 

Comedy, the human, 35 sq. 


425 


Commemoration of the dead at 
Athens, 400 

Communal marriage, ancient system 
of, 169 

Comparative method, the, 4, 10 $Qq., 
26, 185, 356 

Complex fabric of religion, 306 sgq. 

process of evolution not repeated 
independently, 134 

Compromise of the 
paganism, 354 

Compulsory kingships, 240 sg. 

Conception, primitive theory of, 80 
sqq., 88 sqgqg.; true cause of, 
unknown to some savages, 89 

Conceptional theory of totemism, 80 
$9q., 363 note 3 

Confession of sins, 314 sq¢q. 

Confucianism, 395 

Confusion of magic and religion in 
history, 269 sq., 283 sq. 

Connolly, W. E., 131 

Conquering races, 234 

Conservation of energy, the daemiee 
of, 370, 373 

Constantine, 325 

Contact or contagion, law of, 220, 223 

Corn, Adonis and the, 398 

Corn Goddess at Eleusis, 397 

-mother, 311 

-spirit represented by human 
victims, 399 

Cousins, marriage of, prevented by 
eight-class system, 106, 107 ; mutual 
avoidance of, 108, 140; cousin 
marriage in Australia, 115; different 
kinds of, 172 note*. See Cross- 
cousins 

Cowper, William, 18 sq. 

Creation of the world, 261 sgg.; out 
of the bodies of gods, 407 sg. 

Creator, the, decapitated, 407; his 
body broken for the salvation of 
the world, 407 

Criminal justice based on superstition, 

84 

Criminal personating a king or god, 
271, 278; as human victim, 278 

Cross-cousins defined, 172 note * 
marriage of, 172 sg.; origin of 
marriage of, 173 sgg. See Cousins 

Crucifixion, date of the, 331 

Culture, survivals of, 42; evolution 
and diffusion of, 47 sgg.; graduated 
scale of, 198 


Church with 


426 


Cultures, the clash of, 34 sq. 
Custom, the iron mould of, 234 sq. 
Cybele, the revels of, 297 


Danaus, the daughters of, 280 

Dances, masked, 277 

Danger of excessive simplification, 
57 599. 

Dante on the Vesper Bell, 293 

Darwin, Charles, 7, 31, 52, 146, 147, 
376 

Daughters exchanged in marriage, 
173 $99. 

Dead, worship of the, 301 sq., 386 
sgq.; destruction of property for 
the sake of the, 353, 380 sgq.; 
deification of the, 386 sgq., 392 
$qqg.; supposed to return in the 
spring flowers, 400; sacrifices to 
the, 410 

Death, the problem of, 347 sgq.; primi- 
tive theories of, 350 sgg.; deemed 
unnatural, 350 sg.; attributed to 
sorcery, 351; attributed to ghosts 
or spirits, 351 sgg.; fear of, 354; 
contempt of, 354 sg.; deemed un- 
necessary, 357 sg.; and the roses, 
398 sqq. 

Death and resurrection, of Attis in 
relation to Easter, 331 sg.; co- 
incidence of Christian and heathen 
festivals of, 332; 3 Savage ritual of, 
362 sq. 

December the twenty-fifth the birth- 
day of the Sun, of Mithra, and of 
Christ, 329 sg. 

Decline of magic, 281 sgq. 

Deductive method, the, 29 

Degeneracy, theory of human, 9 sg. 

Deicide, the theory of, 406 sq. 

Deification of the dead, 386 sqq., 
392 sgg. 

Deities the ghosts of dead men, 308 

Deity, the hypothesis of a, 214 

Demeter identified with Isis, 310 ; and 
the belief in immortality, 396 sg. ; 
and Persephone, 396, 398 

Demons, belief in the omnipresence 
of, 284 sq. 

Descartes, 8 

Descent shifted from female to male 
line, 123 sg.; maternal, probably 
preferred at institution of totemism, 
126 

Despiritualizing the universe, 308 


uP igen trey ee 
7%} ¥ il r iN Ra ae oy 


INDEX 


Despotism favourable to liberty at a 
certain stage, 234 

Devil’s Advocate, 189 

Devils, expulsion of, 285; 
Richalm on, 288 sqq. 

Diabolical counterfeits of the Christian 
sacraments, 328 

Dichotomies, successive, of Australian 
tribes, 115, 162. See Bisections 

Dieri, an Australian tribe, 172 

Diffusion of culture, 47 sgq.; of the 
great religions, 51 sg.; of fairy 


Abbot 


tales, 56; of totemism, 74 sgq., 87 


Diluvial traditions, 49 sg. 

Dionysus and the drama, 271 

Discovery of the planet Neptune, 52 ; 
of fire, 54 sg.; of totemism and 
exogamy, 65 sq. 

Dissolution and evolution, 375 

Diversity of types an effect of evohutinn, 
15 sg. 

Divine son put to death for divine 
father, 278 

Divinity of kings, 208, 241 sq. 

Dolores in California, 294 

Domestication of animals, 55,94 

D’Orbigny, A., on the Patagonians, 
quoted, 380 sgq. 

Dragons’ teeth sown by the faith in 
a life hereafter, 410 

Drama, religious or magical origin of 
the, 270 sqq. 

Dramas, magical, 
spring, 259; 
rites, 275 sqq. : 

Dramatic representations of natuxal 
processes, 258 

Dravidians, 76, 134 

Dream of gynaecocracy, 127 sqq. 

Dreams of a Golden Age, 31, 33, 59; 
as a source of belief in immortality, 
367 s¢q., 390, 391 

Dual organization, 159 _ 

Duchesne, Mgr. L., 332 

Dying god as redeemer, 405 sg. 


to bring back 


Easter festival in relation to the rites 
of Adonis and Attis, 330 sgqg., 336 

Eating a god, 404 sg. 

Economic forces constant in their 
operation, 179 

losses, heavy, entailed by the 

belief in immortality, 410 

progress, influence of totemism 

on, 70, 93 sg.; inseparable from 


sacred, as magicd 


INDEX 


intellectual progress, 234; retarded 
by the belief in immortality, 380 

Effigies, of Adonis and Attis, 273; 
destroyed instead of human victims, 
278 

Egypt, magic in, 218; theocratic 
government in, 234; Isis and Osiris 
in, 273 

Egyptian kings worshipped as gods, 

» 395 5g. 

—— ritual of the newborn Sun, 329 

Eight-class system of marriage, 104 
$99, 113, 115, 136, 171, 172 

Elders, council of, 232 

Electrical constitution of matter, 375 

Electricity, physical forces resolved 
into, 310 

Electrons and atoms, 418, 419 

Elements, the ultimate, 420 

Eleusinian mysteries, 397 

Embryology, 8 

Emetic used to purge sin, 314 

Emotion and religion, 295 © 

Emotional basis of folk-lore, 295 sq. 

Empedocles, 371 sqq. 

Energy, life as an indestructible, 369 
sqq.; doctrine of the conservation 
of, 370 

England’s duty to the savage, 20 sqq. 

Epiphany, 330 

Equality, visions of universal, 59 

Esquimau, 289 

Esther, the Book of, 271 

Euhemerism, 272, 387, 394 sq. 

Europe, faith in magic in, 218 ; primi- 
tive beliefs and customs of the 
peasantry in, 318 sg.; fear of 
death in, 354 

European belief in witchcraft, 320, 

24 

Eiion of man, 5 sgq.; evolution 
theory, 7 sgq., 52 sg., 420; diversity 
of types a condition and effect of, 
15 sg.; scale of mental, 25 sg.; 
and diffusion of culture, 47 sgq.; 
moral, 184; and dissolution, alter- 
nate eras of, 375 

Exchange of daughters and sisters in 
marriage, 173 sgg.; of souls with 
animals, 363 

Exogamous classes in Australia, 101 
Sg. 104 Sgq. 

Exogamy defined, 65 note*; dis- 
covery of, 65 sg.; different possible 
origins of, 66 sg.; the source of 


427 


the prohibited degrees of marriage, 
71; the problem of, 100 sgg.; an 
innovation on totemism, I01; in 
Australia, origin of, 103 sqq.; 
and group marriage, 112 sg.; no 
part of true totemism, 101; how 
related to totemism in Australia, 
117 sgg.; not applied to primitive 
(conceptional) totemism, 118 sg. ; 
general solution of the problem of, 
130 sgg.; originates in a bisect’ >n 
of a community, 134; of the class 
probably earlier than exogamy of 
the totemic clans, 135; its analogy 
to scientific breeding, 135 sgq.; 
local, 137; breaches of, punished 
with extreme severity, 149 sg.; not 
a necessary stage in human history, 
169 sgg.; its gradual breakdown, 
171° 

Exorcism, rites of, 292 

Experience as a source of the concep- 
tion of God, 202 sgg.; as a source 
of the belief in immortality, 389 
S9q. 

Expulsion of devils or ghosts, 285 

External soul, belief in, 360 sg.; 
theory of totemism, 363 note * 

world, inferred from our sensa- 

tions, 203 sg.; anillusion, 213; the 

assumption of an, 413 sqq. 


Fairy tales, diffusion of, 56; totem- 
ism in, OI sg. 

Faith in immortality pinned to the 
cast skins of serpents, 355. See 
Immortality 

Fall of man, the, 355 sg. 

Fallacy of magic, 244 sqq¢. 

Fame, Greek rhetorician on the 
vanity of, 359 sq. 

Fatherhood in primitive society, 127 

Father-kin, preference for, 122 sgq. ; 
or mother-kin, alternative of, 125 


Sqq.- 

Fear of death, 354 

Fear of ghosts, 380 sgq.; 
effect of, 383 sqq. 

Festival of Flowers, 401 

Feuerbach, L. A., 295 

Fire, discovery of, 54 sq. 

Floods, traditions of great, 49 sg. 

Flowers, the Festival of, 401 

Flux of morality, 183 s¢q. 

Folk, the religion of the, 323 s¢. 


salutary 


428 INDEX 


Folk-lore, the meaning of, 42; and 
poetry, 43; the emotional basis of, 
205 sq. 

Forces, material, substituted for deities, 
213 sg.; the world as a system of 
impersonal, 281 sg.; physical, re- 
solved into electricity, 310 

Four-class system of marriage, 101 
Sq.) 104 S9q., 113, 115, 136, 172 

Froude, J. A., on the sound of church 
bells, 294 


Garcilasso de la Vega, 18 

Gaul, date of the Crucifixion in, 331, 
332, 333 

Genesis, the Fall of Man in, 356; the 
Babylonian, 407 

George the Third, 232 

Ghosts, expulsion of, 285; of dead 
men as deities, 308; as causes of 
death, 351 sg.; social advantages 
and disadvantages of a belief in, 
352 sg.; the world of, 379; the 
fear of, 380 sgg.; salutary effect of 
the fear of, 383 sqq. 

Gillen, F. J., 73, 83, 101 

Giotto and St. Francis, 295 

God, origin of man’s conception of, 197 
$9qg.; savage notion of, 200 sg.; the 
problem of, 214 sg.; inferred as a 
cause, 215 sg.; the love or fear of, 
297 sg.; of the Jews, 310; the 
eating of a, 404 sg.; the dying, as 
a redeemer, 405 sg.; sacrifice of a, 
for the salvation of the world, 407 
sqq. See Gods 

Goddesses and mother-kin, 128 sg. 

Gods the reflection of their worshippers, 
129; human, 208, 238 s9q.; 
created by man in his own likeness, 
212, 403; of nature, 212; displaced 
by abstract ideas, 213 ; mortal, 257 
sg.; rise of the, 281 sgg.; in- 
carnate in animals, 305 sg. ; totems 
transformed into, 305 sg.; Egyptian 

- kings worshipped as, 395 sg. ; mor- 

tality of the, 402 sg.; the universe 
created out of the bodies of, 407 sq. 
See God 

and goddesses personated by 
men and women, 271; represented 
by human victims, 406 

Golden Age, dreams of, 31, 33, 59, 
233; legend of the, 272 


Government, respect for, strengthened 
by superstition, 191 sg.; always 
aristocratic, 236 

Grass-seed totem, 93, 94 

Gray, Thomas, on the curfew bell, 294 

Great men as feunders of religions, 


395 59. 

Greek mythology, changes of the 
seasons in, 260 

philosophers on the ultimate 
elements, 420 

Greeks, the ancient, 151 ; 
querors, 234 

Grimm, the brothers, 319 

Group marriage, I12 sgg.; the source 
of group or classificatory system of 
relationship, 154, 156 sq., 160 sqq. ; 
the levirate and svrorate relics of, 
163 sgq. 

relationship derived from group 
marriage, 154, 160 sgg.; its ad- 
vantages in early history of man- 
kind, 145 

Guarded speech, 286 sg. 

Guiana, 289 

Gynaecocracy, the dream of, 127 sgq. 


as con- 


Haidas, two-class system among the, 
130 
Haman, effigy of, annually ae 


279 
Handel, the harmonies of, 297 
Harte, Bret, on the Angelus bell, 294 
Heape, Walter, 135 
Hebrew law of the levirate, 166 
prohibition of images, 226 sq. 
—— prophets, 205, 298 
story of the Fall of Man, 356 
Hebrews no exception to general law, 


42 
Hebrides, guarded speech in the, 287 
Hell in Protestant and Catholic 
divinity, 354 
Hereditary totemism, 119 sqq. 
Herero, tribe of South Africa, 76 
Hierarchy, the religious, 205 
Hindoo law of levirate, 166 
Hindoos, exogamy among the, 169 
Historical study of religion, 336 s¢q. 
Holiness or taboo, 313 sg. 
Homicide, purification for, 383 sq. 
Horus and Isis, 312 
Hostility of religion to magic, 283 sg. 
Howitt, Dr. A. W., 101, 141, 142 
Human gods, 208, 238 sqq. 


a 
* 


See ee 


a 
= ne? oe 
ee ee, a 


{yr fa “ > ‘ 
a a Nee a Phe ll ie 
= PS oe ae ee ee ee 


INDEX 


Human incarnations of the powers of 
nature, 279 

life, respect for, strengthened by 

superstition, 192 

nature, different views of, 411 s¢q. 

—— sacrifices, 353 

victims at festivals, 271, 278; 
as representatives of the corn- 
spirit, 399; representing gods and 
goddesses, 406 

Humanity, progress of, 60 sg.; the 
embryonic age of, 69; service of 
superstition to, 192 

Hume, David, 210 

Hunting stage of society, 304 

Hurons (Wyandots), two-class system 
among the, 131 sq. 

Hydrogen, the ultimate element, 418, 
420 

Hypotheses, their use, 26, 32, 59, 228 


Ignorance of paternity in some savage 
tribes, 85, 87, 89, 91, 173; the 
source of totemism, 85; probably 
at one time universal, 147 

Illusion of an external world, 213 

Images, Hebrew prohibition of, 226 sq. 

Imagination, her fairy lantern, 379 

Imitation, the instinct of, 288 

Immortal, many savages think them- 
selves, 350 sq. 

Immortality, the belief in, 302, 347 ; 
the belief in, shared by the great 
majority of mankind, 350; attributed 
to serpents and other animals that 
cast their skins, 355 sg.; deduced 
from dreams, 367 sgq.; the belief 
in, its effect in retarding economic 
and social progress, 380; exceed- 
ingly common, 388 ; how acquired, 
388 sg.; grave consequences entailed 
by the belief in, 409 sg.;_ universality 
of the belief in, 409; the question 
of, 409 sq. 

of animals, savage belief in the, 
365 599. 

Inbreeding, question of the injurious 
effect of, 103, 146 sg. 

Incantations and prayers, 284 

Incarnation, the doctrine of, 272; 
of gods in animals, 305 sq. 

Incarnations of the powers of nature, 
279 

Incest, antipathy to, 102, 125; pre- 
cautions against, 109; horror of 


429 


Australian aborigines at, 115 ; with 
daughter or sister punished with 
death, 140 sg.; origin of aversion 
to, 145 sgg.; enjoined in certain 
cases, 148 note*; supposed to 
blight the crops and to injure 
women and cattle, 150 sq. 

India, fairy tales diffused from, 56; 
magic in, 218; totemism in, 304 

Indian Archipelago, 150 

Individualism and collectivism, 163 

Indo-China, 150 

Indra, great Indian god, creation of, 
408 

Inductive method, the, 29 s¢q. 

Industrial theory of totemism, 77 sgq., 
363 note ? 

Inequality of men, 235 

Infinite, incapacity of the mind to 
grasp the, 416 sq. 
Initiatory rites at puberty, 362, 364 
Inspiration, 205 sgg. ; common among 
savages, 206; dangers of, 206 sq. 
Institutions, history of, 27, 30; of 
civilized society rooted in savagery, 
27; partly based on superstition, 
190; influence of the passions in 
moulding, 296 

Intichiuma, magical ceremonies for 
the multiplication of totems, 77, 
78 sq. 

Intuition as a source of the conception 
of God, 201 sqq. 

Inversion of social ranks at festivals, 
277 

Ireland, woman burnt as witch in, 219 

Irish, the ancient, 151 

Iroquois, 76; the two-class system 
among the, 130, 131, 133 

Ishtar (Astarte), Semitic goddess of 
love, 272 

Isis and Osiris, 273, 316 

and the Madonna, 310 s9q.; 
identified with Demeter, 310; suck- 
ling Horus, 312 

Islam, 324 


January 6th old Christmas, 329; 
Epiphany, 330 

Jealousy, sexual, stronger in men 
than in women, 167 

Jesuit missionaries, 67 

Jewish custom of priest’s bells, 293 

Jews, the God of the, 310 ;_ their use 
of a scapegoat, 314 sg. 


430 


Johnson, Dr. Samuel, 12, 17 
Julius Caesar, 232 
Jupiter and Juno, 316 


Kaitish, a tribe of Central Australia, 
88, 93 

Kamilaroi, a tribe of New South Wales, 
76 

Kangaroo totem, 93, 94 

Kariera, a tribe of Western Australia, 
177, 178 

Kenais of Alaska, two-class system 
among the, 130, 132 

Khasis, mother-kin among the, 129 

King, criminal masquerading as, at 
Babylon, 271 

sacred or divine, put to death at 
end of a year, 278; expected to 
secure the orderly succession of the 
seasons, 278 

Kings, the divinity of, 208, 241 sqq. ; 
of mankind, the uncrowned, 236 sq. ; 
ancient, constrained to observe 
certain rules, 238 sgg.; punished 
for natural calamities, 241; sup- 
posed to control the course of 
nature, 241 

Kingships, compulsory, 240 sq. 

Knowledge, the advance of, infinite, 
32; natural, the sources of, 201 ; 
the disinterested pursuit of, 234 

Kulin, an Australian tribe, 172 

Kurnai, a tribe of Gippsland (Aus- 
tralia), 141 


Labrador, 289 

Lactantius on the date of the Cruci- 
fixion, 333 

Lake Eyre, 114 

Landen, the battle of, 400 

Lapland, guarded speech in, 287 

Latins, the ancient, 151 

Law of contact or contagion, 220, 
223 

of similarity, 220, 223 

Laws, never wholly new, 181 sgq.; 
the course of nature assumed to be 
determined by immutable, 300; of 
nature, tardy recognition of, 282 

Leaders of mankind, the real, 235 sqq. 

Lebanon, Mount, 401 

Leibnitz, 52 

Leo the Great, 330 . 

Leverrier, U. J. J., French astrono- 
mer, 52 


INDEX 


Levirate, marriage with a deceased 
brother’s widow, 164 

and sororate, relics of group 
marriage, 163 s¢q. 

Liberty favoured by despotism at a 
certain stage, 234 

Licata in Sicily, 322 

Licence, unrestricted, of sexes under 
puberty in savage tribes, 89 

Life, a meditation of death, 349; as 
an indestructible energy, 369 s¢q. 

Lovers of Semiramis, 272, 275 

Lowly, the, not necessarily degraded, 
41 


McLennan, J. F., 65, 66, 68, 165 

Madonna, her resemblance to Isis, 312 

Magic the mother of art, 97 ; the Age 
of, 217 sgg., 353, 402; principles 
of, 220 sgg.; homoeopathic or 
imitative, 220, 222, 223, 244; 
contagious, 220, 222, 223, 244; theo- 
retical and practical, 221, 225; 
sympathetic, 222, 223, 243, 269, 
288; positive and negative, 223 
sqq.; the fallacy of, 224, 244; 
private and public, 229; paves the 
way for science, 235, 283; its 
analogy to science, 242 sgg.; older 
than religion, 247 sg.; passage of, 
to religion, 248 sgqg.; belief in, 
affected by variability of climate, 
253 sqq.; of the seasons, 257 sgq.; 
random shots of, 268 sg.; and 
religion logically distinct but his- 
torically confused, 269 sg.; decline 
of, 281 sgqg.; hostility of religion 
to, 283 sg. ; superseded by religion, 
340 

Magical dramas to bring back spring, 
259 

rites of pastoral people, 269 

Magicians, their services, 207; their 
political progress, 208; benefits 
from the rise of public, 227 sgq. 

Magician’s progress, 229 sgq. 

Mahomet, 51 

Malay Peninsula, guarded speech in 
the, 287 

Malayan peoples, 150 

Man, the study of, 1 sgg.; the 
evolution of, 5 sgqg.; in society, 
63 sgg.; not an automaton, 180 
sqg.; and the supernatural, 195 
sqq.; his conception of God, 197 


INDEX 


s9q.; creates gods in his own like- 
ness, 212, 403; the antiquity of, 
303; and immortality, 345 sgq.; 
the Fall of, 355 sg. 

Man-god, the slaying of the, 403 sg. 

Mankind, the real leaders of, 235 sgq. 

Mannhardt, W., 267 

Marriage, the institution of, 28; 
respect for, strengthened by super- 
stition, 190, 192; of brothers with 
sisters prevented by two-class system, 
IO1, 105 sg., 115; of cousins pre- 
vented by eight-class system, 106, 
107,115,136; of cousins in Australia, 
115 note’; of parents with children 
prevented by four-class system, 101 
$q., 106, 115 

Materialism and spiritualism, 418 sg. 

Materialistic and spiritualistic hypo- 
thesis, 310 

Maternal descent probably preferred 
at institution of exogamy, 126. See 
Mother-kin 

Matter, electrical constitution of, 375 

Medicine-men, their services, 207; 
their political progress, 208 

Mekeo people of New Guinea, 131 

Melanesia, the two-class system in, 
130; club-houses for unmarried 
men in, 145 

Northern, 139 

Southern, 142 

Melanesians, their theory of death, 
351 

Men, the natural inequality of, 235 

Menace of superstition, 319 sq. 

Metals, discovery of the art of working, 
55 

Metempsychosis, 
migration 

Method, the comparative, 4, 10 sqq., 
26, 185, 356; deductive and induc- 
tive, the, 29 sgq. 

Mexico, men and women sacrificed as 
gods and goddesses in, 406, 407 

Micah, the prophet, 298 

Michael Angelo, 336, 404 

Milk, superstitious restrictions on the 
use of, 269 

Milton on chastity, 187 

Mimicry, the instinct of, 288 

Mind, study of the human, 12 sqq.; 
similarity of, in different races, 47, 
48 ; chemistry of the, 200, 270 

Mirage of a Golden Age, 33 


Trans- 


392. See 


431 


Mithra, the worship of, a rival of 
Christianity, 328; his nativity on 
December 25th, 329 

Mohammedanism, 395 

Monarchy essential to emergence from 
savagery, 232 sgq. 

Monotheism, evolved out of poly- 
theism, 309 sq. 

Moral evolution, 184 

Moralist and historian, 337 

Morality, the flux of, 183 sgq.; of 
religious beliefs, 337; shifted from 
superstition to reason, 385 

Morgan, Lewis H., 68, 106, 131, 153, 
163 

Mortal gods, 257 sg. 

Mortality of the gods, 402 sq. 

Mother and son, mutual avoidance of, 
142 sg., 144 

of the Gods, the Great, her 
worship in the Roman Empire, 325, 
326 

Mother’s fancy the origin of totemism, 
80 sqq., 86 sq., 121 sq. 

Mother-kin exchanged for father-kin, 
122 sgg.; or father-kin, alternative 
of, 125 sgg.; does not imply mother- 
rule, 127; most prevalent among 
lowest savages, 127; its influence 
on religion, 128 sq. 

Movement of thought, the, 339 sqq. 

Movers, F. C., 273 

Miiller, Max, 58 

Music, the power of, 
religion, 296 sg. 

Mysteries as magical ceremonies, 276 ; 
the Eleusinian, 397 

Myth, of illogical or prelogical 
savage, 38; solar myth theory, 58 ; 
of Demeter and Persephone, 398 

Mythologists, rival schools of, 271; 
and symbolism, 306 

Mythology, study of primitive, 58; 
ancient, difficulty of its interpreta- 
tion, 279 sqq. 

Myths and their counterparts in 
magic, 276; survive ceremonies, 
276; the shadows of men on the 
clouds, 276 


295; and 


Nativity of the Sun on December 25th, 
328 sg.; Nativity of Christ trans- 
ferred to that of the Sun, 329 

Natural law, tardy recognition of, 282 

religion, two forms of, 300 sq. 


432 


Natural theology, 201 s¢q. 

Nature, external, personified by the 
savage, 212; gods of, 212; asa 
system of impersonal forces, 214; 
the course of, supposed to be con- 
trolled by kings, 241; supposed to 
-be controlled by magic, 254; its in- 
fluence on religion, 261; powers of, 
personified in a deity, 272; human 
incarnations of the powers of, 279 ; 
the course of, assumed to be 
determined by immutable laws, 300 ; 
worship of, 300 sg.; the order of, 
340 Sq. 

Negative evidence untrustworthy, 149, 
153 

Neptune, discovery of the planet, 52 

New birth, theory of a, 325 

New Guinea, evidence of two-class 
system in, 131; club-houses for 
unmarried men in, 145 

New Hebrides, the Northern, 142 

New Ireland, class exogamy in, 139 

Newman, John Henry, on music, 296 

Newton, Isaac, 52 

Nicosia in Sicily, 322 

Noah’s ark, 58 

Norse story of “ the giant who had 
no heart in his body,” 361 

Notre Dame, 323 


Olympus, a totemic, 305 

Oriental religions in the West, 325 sgq. 

Origin of agriculture, 55, 93 sgqg.; of 
exogamy in Australia, 103 sgq.; of 
aversion to incest unknown, 145 
sqq.; conjecture as to, of aversion to 
incest, 148 sgq.; of the classificatory 
system of relationship, 156 sq., 159 
sq.; of cross-cousin marriage, 173 

_ $gq.; of man’s conception of God, 
197 sqq.; of variations unknown, 237; 
of the drama, 270 sqgq.; of religious 
creeds, inquiry into the, 338 

Origins, anthropology a science of, 
16 sg.; question of single or 
multiple, 50 sgg.; of totemism and 
exogamy, 66 sg. 

Oscillations of the social pendulum, 
32 sq. 

Osiris, 260, 261; and Isis, 273; 
possible humanity of, 395 sq. 


Paestum, the Greek temples at, 193 
Paganism of the peasants, 320 


INDEX 


Palatine, the ruins of the, 295 

Palermo, 321, 322 

Palestrina, the harmonies of, 297 

Palm Sunday, 321 

Paracelsus, 377 

Parents and children, marriage of, 
prevented by four-class system, 101 
$qg., 106, 115 ; mutual avoidance of, 
109 

Parilia, the, Roman festival, 332 

Passage of magic to religion, 248 sgq. 

Passions, influence of the, in moulding 
institutions, 296 

Pastoral people, magical rites of, 269 

stage of society, 304 

Patagonians, their destruction of the 
property of the dead, 380 sgg. 

Paternity, primitive conception of, 91 

—— physical, unkhown at rise of 
exogamy, 122, 126; recognized in 
South-Eastern Australia, 122 sg.; 
ignorance of, 173 

Peasant a pagan at heart, 320 

Peasantry, primitive beliefs and cus- 
toms of the, 318 sq. 

Penelope’s web, 375 - 

Permanence of superstition, 316 sg. 

Persephone and Demeter, 396, 398 

Personification of external nature, 
212; a chief source of the worship 
of nature, 301 

Peru, theocratic government in, 234 

Philosophers in search of the ultimate 
reality, 416; Greek, on the witmate 
elements, 420 

Philosophy and science, the eecting 
of, 417 

Phrygia, Cybele and Attis in, 273; 
date of the Crucifixion in, 331, 


332 

Pieta of Michael.Angelo, 336 

Piety, two types of, 216 sg. 

Pillars of society, the, 187, 192 

Plato, on life as a meditation of death, 
349 ; on the transmigration of souls, 
37 

Plea for superstition, 190 

Poetry and folk-lore, 43 

Polyandry, 165 

Polynesia, totemism in, 305 

Polytheism, 212; evolved out of 
animism, 309 ; evolving into mono- 
theism, 309 sg. 

Porphyry on demons, 288 sg. 

Possession by a spirit, belief in, 89 


INDEX 


Prajapati, the creator in Vedic mytho- 
logy, 408 

Prayer and sacrifice, 282 

Prayers and incantations, 284 

Priest, bells of the High, 291 sgg. ; in 
sacrifice identified with the Creator, 


408 

Priestly Code, the, 291 

Priests opposed to magic, 282, 283 

Primaeval man, his social condition 
unknown, 32 s¢., 40 

Primitive, existing savages not abso- 
lutely, 39 sqq., 69 

Progress, tide of, setting from the sea, 
44 5q.; 
intellectual advance, 45 sg.; of 
humanity, 60 sg.; economic, sup- 
posed influence of totemism on, 70 ; 
economic and intellectual, 234 

Prohibited degrees of marriage a 
legacy of exogamy, 71; social 
avoidance of persons within the, 
107 sqgqg.; origin of, 115; marriage 
regulated by, after the breakdown 
of exogamy, 171 

Prometheus, legend of, 55 

Promiscuity, sexual, 110 s¢., 112 

Property, destruction of, for the sake 
of the dead, 353, 380 sgqg.; destruc- 
tion of, entailed by sacrifices to the 

- dead, 410 

private, a cause of change from 
mother-kin to father-kin, 123; in- 
stitution of, 28; respect for, 
strengthened by superstition, 190, 
192 

Prophets, the Hebrews, 205, 298 

Protestant divines on hell, 354 

Punaluan, a form of group marriage, 

163 

Punishment and purification, 383 sg. ; 
theories of capital, 384 

Purification, ceremonial or religious, 
289, 315; for homicide, 383 sg. ; 
passes into punishment, 334 

Purim, Jewish festival, 279 

Purushu, a primordial giant, 408 


Question of immortality, 409 sqq. 


Rainfall, effect of, on progress, 45 

Rationalism, influence of, 320 

Rationality of the savage, 37 sq¢- 

Reality, two views taken of the 
ultimate, 416, 418 


material, a measure of 


433 


Reason, the rock of, 385 

Rebirth of human souls, 392 

Reborn, souls of animals thought to 
be, in other bodies, 365, 367 

Redeemer, the dying god as, 405 sg. 

Reforms, social, among the Australian 
aborigines, 101, 116 

Reincarnation of human souls, 392 

Relics of group marriage, 167 

Religion, how affected by mother-kin, 
128; later than magic in the evolu- 
tion of humanity, 247 sg,; passage of 
magic to, 248 sgqg.; of the seasons, 
257 sgq-.; influence of nature on, 
261 ; hostile to magic, 283 sg.; and 
emotion, 295 ; and music, 296 sg. ; 
the nature of, 297 sgg.; belief and 
practice in, 297 sg.; its antagonism 
to the assumptions of magic and 
science, 299 sg.; two forms of 
natural, 300 sgg.; the stratification 
of, 303 sg.; three great types of, 
303 sg.; the complex fabric of, 
306 sqq.; primitive, of the Aryans, 
best studied in European peasantry, 
318 sg.; of the folk, 323 °s¢.; 
historical study of, 336 sgq. ; society 
built on a foundation of, 339; 
displaced by science, 340 sg.; Age 
of, 353, 402 

Religions, diffusion of the great, 51 
sg.; the variety of, 217; transience 
of the higher, 322 sg.; Oriental, in 
the West, 325 sgg.; great men as 
founders of, 395 sq. 

Religious consciousness affected by 
sexual instinct, 307 

creeds, historical inquiry into 

their origin, 338 

theory blent with magical 

practice, 258 

wars and persecutions caused by 
the belief in immortality, 410 

Remission of sins by the shedding of 
blood, 325 

Renan, Ernest, 226, 295, 320, 401 

Resemblances of children to the dead 
a source of belief in reincarnation, 

2 

faibaridabion of Attis on March 25th, 
331, 332, 333; of Christ on March 
25th or 27th, 333 

Revelations of Abbot Richalm, 289 

Revolution, the anthropologist a 
pioneer of, 31 sg. 


2F 


434 


Richalm, Abbot, on devils, 288 sgq. 

Rig Veda, hymn of the creation in 
the, 407 sq. 

Rise of the gods, 281 sqgq. 

Ritual and belief, 36; of death and 
resurrection in savage tribes, 362 sq. 

Rivers, Dr. W. H. R., 82, 83, 158, 
177 

Roman emperors, their worship of 
Isis, 311 

Roman Empire, Oriental religions in 
the, 325 sqq. 

Roman law, revival of, 327 

Rome, festival of the death and 
resurrection of Attis at, 331, 332 

Roses and death, 398 sq. 

Rousseau, J. J., his dream, 31 sg. 

Russia, thieves’ candles in, 219 


Sacaea, a Babylonian festival, 271, 


273, 275, 279 

Sacrament of wine, 404 

Sacraments, heathen rites regarded 
as diabolical counterfeits of the 
Christian, 328 

Sacrifice of a man in the character of 
a god, 277; and prayer, 282; of 
men and women in the character 
of gods and goddesses, 406, 407 ; 
of a god for the salvation of the 
world, 407 sgg.; Brahmanical doc- 
trine of, 407, 408; mystic, offered 
daily by the Brahmans, 408 

Sacrifices to the dead, 410 

Sahagun, B. de, Franciscan friar, 18 

St. Angels, 322 

Saint Catherine, 295 

St. Francis of Paola, 322 

St. George, festival of, 332, 333 

St. James on faith, 297; on pure 
religion, 298 sg. 

St. John the Baptist, festival of, 332 

St. Joseph, 322 

St. Mark’s at Venice, 295 

St. Michael the Archangel, 322 

St. Paul on immortality, 397 

St. Peter’s, 323; the Preta in, 336 

St. Sophia, 323 

Saints as rainmakers in Sicily, 321 sg. 

Samoa, gods incarnate in animals in, 
305 sq 

Say Griental deity, 273 

Sardananalua, 273, 274 

Satan, a masterpiece of, 334 

Saturn, the god of sowing, 272 


INDEX 


Saturnalias, ancient, 277 sqq. 

Savage, the, as a human document, 
17 sgq.; the passing of, 19 599: 
England’ s duty to, 20 sgg.; ration- 
ality of the, 37 sg.; our debt to 
the, 185 sgg.; his self-restraint in 
certain cases, 188; his personifica- 
tion of external nature, 211 sg.; 
hidebound by custom, 232, 234 sq. 

Savage belief in the immortality and 
resurrection of animals, 365, 366, 367 

‘testimony to a survival eee 
death, 413 

Savapery, civilization evolved out of 
23 sgg., 42; great institutions of 
civilized society rooted in, 27; in 
contact with civilization, 34 sg.; 


and civilization, the line between, 


163, 169; stages of, 198; thestudy - 
of, 199; beneath the surface of — 
society, 219; monarchy essential 
to emergence from, 232 sgq. 

Savages, existing, not absolutely — 
primitive, 39 sgg.,69; many,deem 
themselves naturally immortal, 350 
Sq. . 

Scapegoat, use of, 314 5g. ; 
405, 406 


the divine, 


Science, its conception of the world, aye. 


214; its way paved by magic, 235 ; 


283; analogy of magic to, 242 Sqq-5 x 


banishes spirits, 284; assumes im- 
mutable laws of nature, 300; dis- 
places religion, 340 sg. ; 


of, 417; the apparent finality of 


its generalizations probably illusory, __ 


421 

Scientific spirit, the, 27 

Schonthal, Cistercian monastery of, 
289 

Scotland, magical images in, 219; 
guarded speech in, 287 

Sea, influence of the, on progress, 
44 59 

Boe the unending, 419 sqq- 

Seasons, violent alternations of the, 
in Central Australia, 255 sg.; 
religion and magic of the, 257 sgq. ; 
magical rites for the regulation of 
the, 259; changes of the, in Greek 
mythology, 260 

Secretions of the body, magical use 
of, 269 ; 


TAA, be iy: i a 
superseded by another hypothesis, 
342; and philosophy, the meeting _ 


ri 
Bes 


INDEX 


Self-restraint of the savage in certain 
cases, 188 

Seligman, Dr. C. G., 131 

Semiramis and her lovers, 272, 273, 
275 

Semites, 145, 151; not exogamous, 
170 

Sensations, existence of an external 
world inferred from our, 203, 414 

Sense, refusal of the mind to acquiesce 
in the phenomena of, 413; out- 
stripped by thought, 414 

Serpent and the tree of life, 356 

Sexual relation deemed dangerous, 
364 sg. 

instinct, its influence on religion, 
307 

Shadow, the soul conceived as a, 
359 Sq. 

Sibylline leaves, 22 sg. 

Sicily, Saints as rainmakers in, 321 

Sienna, San Domenico at, 295 

Silvanus, god of woods, 309 

Similarity of human mind in different 
races, 47, 48; the law of, 220, 223 

Similarities of custom, their origin, 
48 sqq. 

Simple ideas the source of widespread 
institutions, 134 sq. 

Simplification, danger of excessive, 
57 599. 

Sins, the confession of, 314 sqgq.; 
remission of, by the shedding of 
blood, 325 

Sirius, the star of Isis, 312 

Sisters, barter of, 168 ; of wife, custom 
of marrying, 164, 167; exchanged 
in marriage, 173 sqq. 

Sisyphus, the stone of, 280 sg. 

Slaying of the man-god, 403 sg. 

Smith, William Robertson, 66 

Social advance of women, 128 

reforms among the Australian 

aborigines, 101, 116 

relationship of father to children 

recognized before the physical, 126 

Sq. 

A ties strengthened by totemism, 

7 599- ; 

Society, foundations of, 4; man in, 
63 sgqg.; governed by man, 128; 
only punishes social offences, 149 ; 
the pillars of, 187, 192; savagery. 
beneath the surface of, 219; 
primitive, uniformity of occupation 


435 


in, 227; three great types of, 303 
sg.; built on a foundation of 
religion, 339 

Sodom, apples of, 421 

Solaparuta in Sicily, 321 

Solar myth theory, 58 

Solomon, King, 288 

Sorcerers, their service and political 
progress, 207 sq. 

Sorcery, death attributed to, 351 sgq. 

Sororate, marriage with wife’s sister, 
164; and levirate, relics of group 
marriage, 167 

Soul conceived as separable from the - 
body, 239; the primitive concep- 
tion of the, 358 sg.; conceived as 
a shadow, 359 sg.; belief in an 
external, 360 sgg.; perhaps trans- 
ferred to totem at initiation, 362 
$qg.; reason for depositing soul 
outside of body, 364 sg. 

Souls of noblemen immortal, 350; 
of animals, savage beliefs as to, 
365 sgg.; the transmigration of, 
371 sq., 377 Sg-, 392; rebirth of 
human, 392 

Southern Hemisphere, totemism in 
the, 75; savagery in the, 77 

Spanish conquerors of Mexico and 
Peru, their view of heathen rites, 
328 

Species, the origin of, 376 

Speech, guarded, 286 sgg. 

Spencer, Herbert, 373 sqq. 

Sir Baldwin, 73, 83, 101 

Spinoza, 28 

Spirits, retreat of the, 284 sg.; 
Thales on, 288; wicked, repelled 
by the sound of bells, 292; as 
causes of death, 351 sg.; social 
advantages and disadvantages of a 
belief in, 352 sg.; of nature and 
of the dead, belief in, 391 

Spiritualistic and materialistic hypo- 
theses, 310 

Spring, magical rites to ensure the 
return of, 259, 263 sqq. 

Spring equinox, resurrection of Attis 
and Crucifixion or Resurrection of 
Christ at the, 331, 332, 333 

flowers, the dead supposed to 
return in the, 400 

Stages of society, the three, 303 

Stella Maris, the Star of the Sea, 312 

Stratification of religion, 303 sq. 


436 - 


Sun created by the cremation of gods, 
407 ; Nativity of the, on December 
25th, 328 sgg.; the Unconquered, 
title of Mithra, 329 

Supernatural, man and the, 195 s¢q. 

Superstition, indirect benefits of, 187 
$qq.; at the bar, 189 sgg.; the per- 
manence of, 316 sg. ; the menace of, 
319 sg.; criminal justice based on, 


384 
Survival of the fittest, 237, 376 ; after 
death, savage testimony to, 413 
Survivals of culture, 42 
Swan Maiden stories, 91 
Swift, Jonathan, 35 
Symbolism, 306; 
Church, 312 
Symmachus, 325 
Syria, Aphrodite and Adonis in, 273 ; 
the rites of Adonis in, 336 
Syrian ritual of the newborn Sun, 329 
——— writer on the origin of Christmas, 
330 


of the Catholic 


Taboo a negative magic, 224; the 
virtue of, 313 sq. 

Tamanaques, a tribe of the Orinoco, 
381 

Telepathy, magical, 225 

Thales, Greek philosopher, 288 

Theocratic governments, 234 

Theology, natural, 201 sgg.; prob- 
lems of, 389; mystical, 409 

Theories transitory, 280 

Thought, the movement of, 339 sq. ; 
the web of, 343 sg.; the alchemy of, 
406; outstrips sense, 416; poised 
on the brink of abysses, 416 sq. 

Tiamat, monster in Babylonian mytho- 
logy, 407 

Tlingits, the two-class system among 
the, 130 

Tongans, their aristocratic view of 
immortality, 350 

Torres Straits, traces of two-class 
system in the Western Islands of, 
131, 133 

Totem not a god, 73; primitive mode 
of determining a person’s,: 80 s¢q., 
118; paternal descent of, 121; 
maternal descent of, 121 sq. 

Totemism, discovery of, 65; different 
possible origins of, 66 sg.; history 
of, 67 sqqg.; defined, 65 note *, 71 
sqq.; diffusion of, 72 sgq¢.; industrial 


INDEX 


theory of, 77 sgq., 363 note?; con- 
ceptional theory of, 80 sgq., 363 
note’; in fairy tales, QI sg.; in 
relation to the origin of agriculture, 
93 Sg.; antiquity of, 68 sg.; nota 
worship of animals and plants, 74 ; 


its influence on art, 96 sg.; its effect. 
in strengthening the social bonds, 
97 sqg-; exogamy not a part of 


true, 101; how related to exogamy 
‘in Australia, 117 sgg.; primitive 
conceptional, 118; hereditary, 119 
sqq-.; transition from conceptional 
to hereditary, 120, 121; not con- 


fined to the hunting stage of society, - 


304; and imitiatory rites, 362; 
external soul theory of, 363 note * 
Totems, magical ceremonies for the 
multiplication of the, 77, 78 YS 
93 sg.; the great majority of, 
edible animals and plants; 90 sg. ; 

transformed into gods, 305 sg. 

Transformation of totems into gods, 
305 sg. 

Transience of the higher religions, 322 
Sq. 

Transmigration of souls, 371 sg., 377 
$q-, 392 

Transmission of customs and beliefs, 
48 sqq. 

Transition from maternal to paternal 
descent, 122 sgg.; from concep- 
tional to hereditary totemism, 120 
sqq.; from animism to monotheism, 
308 s¢q. 

Tree of life and the serpent, 356 

Truth, the only guiding star, 5; the 
narrow way of, 339 

Two-class system of marriage, 101 
$Y.» 104 Sgg., 113, 114, 115, 119, 
125, 130, 136, 142, 172 

Tylor, Sir Edward B., 5 


Uganda, 165 

Ulysses, 342, 421 

Union of the sexes supposed to 
stimulate the growth of the crops, 


259, 273 
Universality of the belief in im- 


mortality among savages, 409 
Universe created out of the bodies of 


gods, 407 sq. 


Variability of climate, its effect on 
belief in magic, 253 sgq. 


a z . 
2 eae ee 


INDEX 


Variations, mental and physical, their 
origin unknown, 237 

Vesper Bell, the, 293 

Vicarious suffering, some benefits of, 


98 sq. 

Virgin birth, belief in, 88 

— Mary, her resemblance to Isis, 
312 

Voyages to the South Seas, 17 


Wagawaga people of New Guinea, 
131 

Wallace, Alfred Russel, 7, 358 

Warramunga, a tribe of Central 
Australia, local exogamy among 
the, 137 

Wars entailed by the belief in im- 
mortality, 409 sq. . 

Weakening of religious faith, 338 

Web of thought, 343 sg.; Penelope’s, 
375 

Weissmann, August, 357. 

Westermarck, Dr. Edward, 109 

Widow of deceased brother, custom 
of marrying, 164 sgq. See Levirate 

Wife’s mother, avoidance of, 108, 
141 sq. 

sisters, custom of marrying, 164, 

167. See Sororate 


437 


Wine, the sacrament of, 404 

Winter, effigy of, annually destroyed, 
279 

Winter solstice the birthday of the 
Sun, 329 

Witchcraft, European belief in, 320, 
324; death attributed to, 351 sgq. 

Wives, practice of purchasing, 166 

Wizard of history, the masked, 139 

Woman’s part in the origin of agri- 
culture, 95 sg. 
Women, social advance of, 128 
Words avoided or substituted from 
superstitious motives, 286 sgg. 
World, the, a bauble, 204; creation 
of the, 261 sgg.; the, as a system 
of impersonal forces, 281 sg. See 
External world 

Worship of nature, 300 sg.; of the 
dead, 386 sgq. 

Wyandots (Hurons), two-class system 
among the, 131 sq. 


Yuracares, a South American tribe, 
381 


Zela, annual mystery-play at, 275 
Zoganes, human victim at the Sacaea, 


273. Sec Sacaea. 


THE END 


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